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ABBYY Ships FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition, Providing Increased Productivity to Networked Environments

September 02, 2003
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New ABBYY FineReader 7.0 Continues to Set the Standard in Recognition Accuracy with 25 Percent Improvement

ABBYY, a leader in document recognition and linguistic technologies, today announced the global availability of FineReader® 7.0 Corporate Edition. Packed with robust networking features, FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition is geared toward corporations in networked environments that need to convert and repurpose a wide variety of paper documents and PDF files. This version of ABBYY's popular optical character recognition (OCR) application improves the process of converting paper documents into electronic ones by adding an average of 25 percent increased recognition accuracy over the previous version. As an OCR and document conversion application, FineReader 7.0 works to solve the problem of unlocking previously static documents, like hardcopy word processed documents or spreadsheets and PDF files, in order to convert these files into dynamic documents that can be repurposed for editing, updating, revising and archiving.

"As a starting point for workgroup collaboration, FineReader 7.0 allows the corporate community to edit, update, route, and essentially, revive otherwise static documents," said Sergey Andreyev, CEO of ABBYY. "With FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition, ABBYY continues to raise the bar in document conversion accuracy, thus further expanding the benefits of increased productivity and lowered costs of document conversion to the corporate environment."

FineReader 7.0 continues to help businesses in need of achieving greater productivity by introducing robust network capabilities on top of all the functionality in FineReader 7.0 Professional Edition, which delivers improved word accuracy and format retention, PDF conversion and XML output.

Robust Network Features for Networked Environments:

Many of the capabilities in FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition are specific to networked environments and are designed to help businesses efficiently process OCR projects more quickly and easily. These new network features include:

  • Automated Network Installation - IT administrators can conduct direct server-to-workstation installations of FineReader 7.0 (using Active Directory, Microsoft Systems Management Server, and command line.)
  • Support for Networked Multi-Function Peripherals - Designed for work groups with MFP or digital copiers on the network, FineReader offers special program settings that allow users to open scanned images or PDF files automatically from anywhere on the network or from an FTP server.
  • Concurrent User Support with License Management - FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition offers concurrent user support, particularly suitable for companies with many employees who now and then need to use FineReader within the network. With FineReader 7.0's new License Manager, administrators can easily manage licenses, assign licenses for particular workstations, monitor usage, and add new licenses on a network.

FineReader 7.0 also includes the following features:

Improved Recognition Accuracy

FineReader 7.0 delivers an enhancement of an average of 25 percent accuracy improvement over the previous version through the incorporation of new algorithms and classifiers in the overall technology, adaptive binarization, and background removal. FineReader 7.0's recognition accuracy performs particularly well with text on colored or textured backgrounds.

English and German Legal and Medical Dictionaries. Specialized English and German dictionaries that include the most frequently used legal and medical terminology have been added for improved recognition of legal and medical text.

PDF Conversion

When converting PDF files, FineReader 7.0 delivers a significant increase in accuracy of an average of 45 percent through a process by which the underlaid text is extracted from the PDF files prior to recognition. In addition, FineReader also enhanced its PDF output capabilities and quality, making the program a true document conversion solution.

Linearized PDF. All PDF documents created by FineReader are now linearized, which is optimal for Web publishing. The PDF files are structured in a way that allows the first page of the PDF file to be displayed in a user's Web browser before the entire file is downloaded.

Edited PDF. Users can edit recognized PDF files (as well as all recognized files before saving to PDF) in the FineReader edit window. With this feature, users will be able to open an existing PDF document in FineReader, make changes, and save it back into any number of PDF formats.

FineReader supports output in any of the four standard PDF file formats (text and pictures only, text over image, text under image, and image only) with additional controls such as whether or not to replace suspect words with images. This gives users six PDF saving options - more PDF formats than any other OCR software.

In addition, FineReader 7.0 is the only OCR program that is able to create text over image PDF files, essentially eliminating the pixilated text outcome that often results without this capability. In order to preserve text and font characteristics, FineReader 7.0 first "paints" the original image, and then carefully layers the recognized text over the image, requiring flawless layout retention in the OCR program. The resulting document will have impeccable layout retention and crisp text, making it ideal for printing, web publishing and archiving.

Improved Layout Retention

FineReader 7.0 provides improved retention of documents with complex layouts, including tables without printed grid lines, tables with colored cells, and documents with bullets, separators and tables. Retention of complex formatting elements in HTML has also been improved.

XML Output

FineReader 7.0 allows users to export recognized document as native XML using Microsoft® Word 2003 defined schema, a widely anticipated emerging standard for file use. This allows users to take advantage of the Word XML file format which can be manipulated and searched using any program that can process industry standard XML. In addition, it provides the basis for data reporting, publishing and submitting data to business processes.

Improved Integration with Microsoft® Office Applications

  • Integration with Microsoft Word 2003. FineReader 7.0 also streamlines the process of recognizing and editing word documents. When exporting documents to Microsoft® Word 2003, FineReader automatically opens an embedded view of the original document, allowing users to concurrently edit and view their original documents, thus eliminating the need to toggle between the two applications.
  • Insertion of Recognized Text into MS Word. When working on a document using Microsoft Word, users can launch FineReader 7.0, recognize a document and insert the recognized text into the active document right at the point where the curser is placed. This means that users will be able to collect information from different source documents and eliminate the extra steps of copying to clip board and pasting to the active document.
  • PowerPoint Support. FineReader recognizes PowerPoint printed slides and handouts, and exports to PowerPoint XP and 2003, making it easy for users to update older PowerPoint presentations.

Hyper-Threading Technology Support

When running FineReader 7.0 on computers with Hyper-Threading Technology in background mode, the program will launch as many processes as there are virtual processors, which increases the speed of operation. This technology can greatly increase productivity when recognizing large numbers of documents.

Distributed Document Processing

Businesses with multiple licenses and multiple workstations can share OCR processes allowing multiple users on the network to scan, recognize, and proofread the same batch of documents simultaneously - essentially creating an OCR production line. To support the needs of a busy office environment, FineReader Corporate Edition takes advantage of additional processors on multiprocessor PCs. The multiprocessing support increases the recognition speed in direct proportion to the number of processors installed. In addition, businesses working with FineReader also benefit from the ability to share custom languages and dictionaries across a network simultaneously.

Shared Languages and Dictionaries.

ABBYY FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition allows multiple users to simultaneously access the same set of user languages and dictionaries available on the network. In addition, Corporate Edition enables users to add words like names, acronyms, and industry lingo to shared dictionaries. The added words help expand the spell check capabilities and also increase the recognition quality, since FineReader uses the dictionaries during the OCR process.

Duplex Scanning

When scanning a two-sided document using a duplex scanner, FineReader 7.0 automatically provides separate images for each side of the document.

System Requirements

FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition supports Intel® Pentium®, Celeron®, and Xeon™, and AMD K6, Athlon™, Duron™, or compatible 200MHz or higher processor. Microsoft® Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT® 4.0 with Service Pack 6 or later, Windows ME/98 operating systems. The software requires 64 MB of RAM for Windows XP/2000/NT 4.0, 32 MB of RAM for Windows ME/98, plus 16 MB of RAM for each additional processor, and 220 MB of hard-disk space for typical installation and program operation. Additional hardware requirements include TWAIN-compliant scanner, digital camera, fax-modem (optional). Super VGA (800x600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor. Product requires activation by the user via Internet or e-mail. For information about ABBYY activation procedures and policies, please visit www.abbyy.com/activation.

Availability

ABBYY FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition is available now from select retail stores, resellers, and online outlets. A free 15-day Try&Buy software version of ABBYY FineReader 7.0 Professional Edition will be available for download at the http://www.abbyy.com/ Web site. For additional information on resellers carrying FineReader 7.0 Corporate Edition, visit the http://www.abbyy.com/.

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