ABBYY FineReader – The Best OCR Software – A Review

Many a times you have to type a document as it is, from an already typed printed document i.e. a hardcopy. You can type documents by with 10-20 pages easily by investing time, but what if the number of pages is 100+ or 500+?

Here comes in handy the use of OCR softwares.

What is OCR?

OCR stands for Optical Character Reader. In words of folks at ABBYY:

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that enables conversion of images, received from scanner or digital camera, and PDFs to editable and searchable text documents ready for editing, quoting, search, and archiving.

These are the programs designed for Desktops, Laptops (and now even Smart Phones and Tablets) which can convert the printed documents into digital / electronic format with the help of algorithms on which they work. At present , different projects are going on, in the market for OCR technology, but the Leader among all is ABBYY’s FineReader. ABBYY is a company who has mastered the OCR technology since its launch in 1989 and have built a trust factor among users for value for money.

WORKING – The features which impressed Tech Jatt

1) Convert Image/ PDF files to Word (.doc, .rtf. .docx) file

FineReader can convert the images to a word file easily and quickly, which you can edit to make changes. The best thing I liked about FineReader is that it conserves the formatting of document –i.e. the bolds, italics, font, size and structure of page remain intact. Other OCRs fail at this step as they would extract plain text from images or PDFs, and then you’ll have to spend your precious time formatting the document manually, which is quite troublesome and the desired results can’t be achieved in case of complex prints.

FineReader also conserves the Header, Footer, Page Number etc. elements along with tables and pictures (diagrams) of that document. So, you can convert your Printed Documents, Printed Books, Publications, News-Articles or any thing else to Digital Format to save them for future use, and decrease the space taken by these heavy documents in your bookshelf.

(click images to enlarge)

2) Convert image Files to PDFs

FineReader can also convert images to machine readable / searchable documents with PDF, PDF/A extensions. The conversion rates and accuracy are >98%. It can be used to preserve your thesis, your documents, publications, other articles, books etc. to PDF format, which can be used later for reading, for republishing, reading on your smart phone etc.

 

3) EPUB files

FineReader can convert any image, PDF file to .epub file. EPUB is a newly developed extension used for EBook Readers Thus you can convert your PDF Books, Printed Books or anything else you want to EPUB format, which can be later read on your Kindle or other EBook Reader.

Now-a-days many apps are available on Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows and other platforms, which can open EPUB files on your Smart Phone. So, ABBYY’s FineReader comes in Handy at this stage also.

 

4) PDF containing only images to searchable PDF

The PDF files in which there are only images of text can be easily converted to machine readable PDFs, which can be analyzed for finding required text. So, it makes using PDFs easy. Also the size of converted and searchable PDFs is lesser than that of non-searchable Image only containing PDFs.

I have converted a book with 971 pages to Searchable form and the size reduced from 77 MB to  54 MB.

Legal-Disclaimer: Scanning a copyrighted book of a publisher, or any other patented material can cause you to run in trouble, because its against law. So, please take due care before altering someone else's creation. At that stage, neither Tech Jatt site, nor its ADMINS or the FineReader Software makers can be held responsible for the law-breaking. Do this at your own risk.
So, scan anything for personal use only and that too after getting permission from creators of that content.

 

Other Features:

• Direct scanning from scanner to any format.
• Verify Text: The software automatically show you a dialog in which it will show you texts which are either not in Dictionary or are susceptible for errors due to error in conversion. You can skip the correctly converted text and rectify the wrongly converted text.

• FineReader also convert special characters easily, which other OCRs can not do.
• You can add / remove any text or complete page from document after reading is complete and before saving.
• Show hidden characters i.e. show where ENTER, TAB, SPACE etc. have been used.
• Image Editor: The images can be edited to suit the requirements fro better conversion with less errors. Eraser is also provided to erase non-required  points and scans.
• Pre-Conversion: The images can be easily enhanced to best form for better conversion.
• It can also merge 2 or more PDFs,  or add as many pages in between or remove as many as you want from any file of any format written above.

Upper one is the image from  PDF and lower one is the converted text, in which image (diagram) has been identified.

PROS

• Everything in our pocket, the scans can be saved on a small chip, or on hard disc, saving the enormous space required by Hard Copies.
• Cloud Storage for future use.
• Searchable PDFs.
• EPUB files.
• Alter anyone’s content by converting to document format and then again saving as PDFs.
• Save time.
• Support for 185+ languages.
• You can also train ABBYY FineReader to understand non-understandable characters.
• You can live longer without retyping. Each hour ABBYY's OCR/PDF products save to customers 12 years for work and life (more than 110 000 years annually).
• No need of separate softwares for conversion like PDF to Word Converter, Images to Word Converter OCR software, Image to PDF converter etc. Its a one stop solution.

Cons

• It doesn’t support Hindi language, which is  native and National language of INDIA..
• No support for Hand-written characters. But why become sad, no software offers it yet and ABBYY will be the first to give it in future.

Requirements for latest version FineReader 12

• PC with 1 GHz or higher
• 1024 MB RAM
• In a multiprocessor system, an additional 512 MB of RAM is required for each additional processor core
• 850 MB of hard disk space for typical program installation and 850 MB free space for optimal program operation
• Video card with 1280x1024 resolution or higher
• Internet connection required to activate your serial number. Some FineReader 12 versions support activation by phone in addition to activation by internet. Connection charges for telephone or Internet may apply.

Buy ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional from Official site for $169,99
Visit official site of FineReader to know about complete features and pricings.

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