Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'd recommend this software to anyone.
It is very, very easy to use, with a wizard-like interface that takes you through the steps very quickly. Scan directly, or open a file previously scanned, indicate an output file or it can open a new MS Word file. Its only outputs seem to be MS Word or MS Excel. Inputs all major scanned-image formats e.g. jpeg, gif, etc. (This review shouldn't be your source for tech details such as that.)
If the text is scanned at too low a resolution, for example 30 dots per inch scans of small text, then you simply won't be able to convert it to text, no matter what -- there simply isn't enough detail in the scan. But for 10-point text, scanned at 100 dots per inch or more, I've found the software to do an excellent job. (Mostly, I scan things at 300 or 600 dpi, and I have seen almost no typos at all.)
The software works fast enough that I can't imagine anyone complaining about the speed. I'd have no hesitation at scanning and converting an entire book. If you wish, you can open multiple scanned pages at once, and it will convert them to a single multi-page document with each page corresponding to one scanned input page.
It is possible to let the text highlight in red anything it wasn't 100% certain about; an excellent feature. For 300 dpi scans of 10 point text, I simply have not found any typos at all, and very rarely will I see anything red. In other words, it's extremely reliable.
I've scanned new and old books; books with fancy old-style drawings in them; books with very strange text formats, and the software does a very good job of it. I find it amazing, and impressive, that the book will create an MS Word document that looks almost exactly like the scanned page; for example, columns and their positions, the positions of photos, etc. The software will cut photos out of the scan and imbed them into the resulting page, so that you truly get a document that could pass for the original scan! (In fact, sometimes it does odd things, like if it finds text within the picture, it will chop up the picture and include converted text right smack in the middle of the picture... a bit odd, but technically quite correct.) Note, that from column to column the precisely placement of each word in the column might be slightly different, but the overall size of the column will be done right.
One POTENTIAL problem is with words that are hyphenated across column boundaries -- this software can retain those hyphens / word splits, so if you then grab the text and re-format it, you'll have to delete the hyphens. But this is easily remedied -- if you choose the advanced feature that says not to retain formatting, it will put those hyphenated words back together! How smart is that!
The software seems to have no problem converting several different font styles and sizes on the same page, even some fonts like western broadside fonts that I imagine would have been too unusual to analyze.
The software clearly corrects for scans that are not truly orthogonal. That is, if the page is crooked in the scan, it will still read it correctly. I've tried giving it pages that were upside down, at right angles, at 45 degree angles, at a 5 degree angle, and it correctly scanned each and re-oriented it properly.
The only problem I ever encountered in scans were lines that had lots and lots of dashes in them, which occured in a 100-year old text that included lines like: "water ---- wet; land ---- dry; fire ---- hot" etc etc. for several paragraphs. The software got confused, and dropped a few words.
In summary, I am absolutely confident that this software will work well for you, and that you'll be quite pleased; will be easy to work, easy to use. I'm decidedly pleased I purchased it.
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