OmniPage Pro Release Notes

Version 11.0

Please read this document for up-to-date information about ScanSoft's OmniPage Pro. You can also find up-to-date information about OmniPage Pro on the OmniPage Pro Web site (http://support.scansoft.com/ominpage).

These release notes discuss the following topics:

· Minimum System Requirements

· Installation

· General Application Notes

· General Technical Notes

· Scanner Support

· Scanner Technical Notes

Minimum System Requirements

To install and run OmniPage Pro, your Windows-compatible PC must be equipped with the following:

· An Intel (or compatible) Pentium™ or higher processor.

· An SVGA monitor with 256 colors and 800x600 pixel resolution.

· A minimum of 32 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM). We recommend 64MB for the best performance.

· Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, Windows NT 4.0, 2000 or Windows XP. Your PC must be Y2K compliant. OmniPage will not run on Windows 3.1, NT 3.51, or OS/2.

· A hard disk with a minimum of 75MB of free space for the application files, plus 10MB working space during installation.

· 9MB for the Microsoft Installer (MSI) and 44MB for Microsoft Internet Explorer (if they are not currently on your system). These programs are present as part of the Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems. OmniPage Pro’s Installer will install both programs is they are not currently on your system.

· A Windows-compatible pointing device.

· A CD-ROM drive for installation.

· A TWAIN or WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) compatible scanner if you plan to scan documents.

Installation

The OmniPage Pro User's Guide provides information about installing and setting up OmniPage Pro. Please refer to it for complete installation instructions.

Install Your Scanner Before You Install OmniPage Pro. Your scanner must be working independently of OmniPage Pro prior to connecting it to OmniPage Pro. Scanners that use OmniPage Pro should be installed according to the scanner manufacturer’s specifications. Please consult the documentation that came with your scanner for information. We recommend that you turn on your scanner before you turn on your PC.

Please also refer to the additional information about scanners in these Release Notes.

Before You Install or Uninstall OmniPage Pro, exit from any open applications so that only Windows is running. There should be no applications listed in the task bar and no floating toolbars.

Install OmniPage Pro. If OmniPage Pro Installer does not display the installation menu shortly after you insert the CD, use the following procedure to install this version:

1. Put CD in CD-ROM drive (D: or the letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive).

2. From the Start menu, select Run.

3. Type d:\Autorun.exe.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions.

On Windows 2000, NT or XP systems, you should have administrator privileges to install OmniPage Pro. After installation, users with restricted rights will be able to use OmniPage Pro.

Register OmniPage Pro. At the end of installation, you will be asked to fill out an electronic form to register your copy of OmniPage Pro. Please refer to the OmniPage Pro User’s Guide for more information on registration.

It may happen that the installer stops with the error code 1706. You may observe this behavior after installing OmniPage Pro in a multi-user environment. When a normal user without administrator privileges logs in and tries to launch OmniPage Pro by selecting its shortcut from the Windows Start menu, the Windows Installer starts completing the installation procedure for the user and aborts with the above error code, unless the "Enable user to use media source while elevated" policy is enabled. Use the following steps to enable it:

1. Logon as Administrator

2. Launch the Windows Group Policy editing application GPEDIT.MSC

3. Locate the policy to be modified. It is located in Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Installer. Its name is "Enable user to use media source while elevated".

4. Double click on it, select the "Enabled" option and also the checkbox labeled "Check to force setting on..."

5. Click Apply, then OK.

6. Close GPEDIT.MSC then logon as the initial user and click on the OmniPage Pro shortcut in the Windows Start menu to launch the installation for this user.

Launch OmniPage Pro. You should launch OmniPage Pro at least once after installation, before attempting to use it through integrated solutions, such as Direct OCR, the Shell Extension (recognizing from an image file’s shortcut menu) or applications like PaperPort.

OmniPage Pro 11 and OmniPage Pro’s earlier versions. If you have an earlier version of OmniPage Pro on your computer you will be asked during installation if you want to keep it or remove it from your computer. If you choose to keep your earlier version and later uninstall OmniPage Pro 11.0, you should launch your earlier OmniPage Pro version manually at least once before attempting to use it through integrated solutions such as Direct OCR or OmniPage Pro’s Shell Extension (recognizing from an image file’s shortcut menu).

General Application Notes

This section discusses a number of points related to using features in OmniPage Pro.

OmniPage Pro User’s Guide

· The OmniPage Pro User’s Guide is available in PDF format. You can read and search documents in PDF format in Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or higher. Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 4.05 is included on the OmniPage Pro CD. You can install it by selecting the “Install Acrobat Reader” option on OmniPage Pro Installer’s starting screen. Access the User’s Guide by inserting the OmniPage Pro CD and selecting the User’s Guide PDF file in the Manuals folder.

Live updates

· You can get live updates to OmniPage Pro from the ScanSoft Web site. ScanSoft is committed to provide high-quality, reliable software. We are constantly improving our products. Solutions may also have been developed for problems reported after product release. You can check if an update is available for your product on ScanSoft's Web site by selecting Get Latest Update in the Help menu of OmniPage Pro. These updates can include new scanner support, software patches, and other updates.

General Technical Notes

If registration does not start at the end of installing OmniPage Pro

· This happens if you install OmniPage Pro on a computer on which an Internet connection has not yet been established. In this case, the Internet Connection Wizard starts when the OmniPage Pro online registration should start. You can register OmniPage Pro at another time. Reminders are displayed periodically.

If Context-sensitive help is not displayed on the main screen area of OmniPage Pro

· This may happen on Windows 98 First Edition. To fix this problem you should download and launch the hhupd.exe file. You can download it from Microsoft’s website at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/tools/htmlhelp/wkshp/download.htm

Specifying filenames in the Load File dialog

· When you type a filename in the text box of the Load File dialog, you should also type the extension of the filename, otherwise the file will not open.

Opening PDF files

· Some PDF files cannot be opened by OmniPage Pro 11. You will receive a warning message explaining the possible reasons if you attempt to open such a file. These files are either encrypted in a way that is not supported by OmniPage Pro or are protected by a password.

Header/Footer recognition

· Headers and footers are recognized on the first page of a document only when re-recognized after more pages are added to the document.

Table cell background color retention

· The background color of a table is retained only if the whole table has the same background color. Retaining the background color of different colored cells within a table is not supported.

Background color retention of normal text

· OmniPage Pro can detect and retain the background color of the recognized text, if requested. If a page is recognized with the “Retain Background Colors” setting selected and re-recognized with the option turned off, the originally recognized background colors remain on the page. To remove the background color, turn the option off, then delete the page, then add it to the document by re-scanning or re-loading the original image, and then perform OCR on the page.

Displaying and exporting documents with headers and footers

· Header and footer markers are displayed in the Text Editor if the Editor is displaying the document in RFP (Retain Fonts and Paragraphs) and No Formatting views. Use the Format menu to specify whether a paragraph should be set as a Header, a Footer, or as Normal Text. Headers and footers are exported as such only if Retain Flowing Columns view is set. Be sure to switch the Text Editor view to RFC if you want to export headers and footers (because the exporting is always done in the current Editor viewing mode).

Relation between paragraphs and zones

· A paragraph can never cross from one zone to another.

Graphic zones are created although detecting graphics is disabled

· If you select Custom for your document’s layout and detecting graphics is disabled on the Options/Custom Layout dialog, graphics zones may still be created during OCR. You can remove the graphics from the output document by switching off the Retain Graphics option on the Save As dialog box.

Re-OCRing a page

· When a page is re-recognized using only the current zones, columns suitable for saving in Retain Flowing Columns (RFC) mode will not be created. This means that even if the current view mode is RFC, the document will be saved in True Page (TP) mode, using frames.

· When a page is re-recognized using only the current zones, text might not fit totally into the frames in the Text Editor if in Retain Flowing Columns (RFC) or True Page (TP) view mode. This is typically the case if the automatically created zones are re-used without modifying them. User-drawn zones are usually drawn looser around text blocks and therefore do not have this problem.

· In general, you cannot control which parts of the recognized text are detected as columns suitable for saving in Retain Flowing Columns (RFC) mode. If you encounter problems with column detection, save the document in one of the other three format modes.

Editing recognition results before saving to PDF format

· The PDF format provides a way to present documents in their original layout. There are editing actions that can be done safely in the OmniPage Pro Text Editor and others that may affect the layout of the output document. Replacing characters and words does not impact the layout, but adding completely new items such as words, lines, and paragraphs may cause the lines or paragraphs in the output document to be condensed to fit within the coordinates of the original recognized text. Therefore, you should be careful when doing such editing actions.

Paragraphs will be placed in their original locations on the page. This means that changing paragraph attributes has no effect on the output.

In the output PDF document, only characters in the ISO Latin-1 character set are displayed correctly.

Saving to Comma Separated ASCII format

· Comma Separated ASCII (CSV) format is useful for saving tables without formatting. Make sure the “Save as columns separated by tabs” table option is turned off in the Save As dialog box when saving documents to CSV format. Otherwise, tab characters will be placed instead of commas and the output file will appear incorrectly in spreadsheet programs.

Incorrectly displayed thumbnail images in the Document Manager

· Thumbnail images of pages near the end of a document may be displayed incorrectly if the number of pages in the document is above 230.

Using OmniPage Pro from other applications such as PaperPort and Pagis Pro

· If a recognition process is started from another application, OmniPage Pro is run in Automation mode with its user interface not visible. If it takes a long time for OmniPage Pro to process the pages before the calling application regains control, the “OLE server busy” message box may be displayed by the Windows system. Select “Retry” to let OmniPage Pro continue processing the document and allow the client application to wait for the completion of the processing.

Converting images to text documents using OmniPage Pro’s Shell Extension

· Right clicking on a filename in the Windows Explorer displays a context menu. OmniPage Pro adds the submenu item “Convert To” in the case of image files. The added menu item allows the image file’s text to be recognized and transferred to the following text formats:*.doc, *.txt, *.xls, *.pdf, *.rtf and *.wpd. Where appropriate, images, layout and styling are also transferred. The text documents will be created in the image file’s folder and will have the same name as the original image, with the appropriate text format’s extension. If the “Launch Application” option is enabled on the context menu’s Properties/OCR Settings dialog, OmniPage Pro also tries to launch the application associated with the selected document format. If you do not have an associated application, you will get a system warning message informing you that there is no associated application for the given file type. However, conversion will be performed even in this situation.

Message box displayed if using OmniPage with PaperPort

· If you use OmniPage Pro from PaperPort, the message “Please finish any open dialogs so that the link can complete” may appear while the OmniPage Pro Options dialog is displayed or OmniPage Pro is processing. You can continue working normally after you close the message box. The message box may appear behind PaperPort or OmniPage Pro window. You can switch to it by using the ALT+TAB key combination.

Zoning images manually when OmniPage Pro is used from other applications

· If OmniPage Pro is used from PaperPort, Pagis, or through Direct OCR, and the “Draw zones automatically” option is turned off, OmniPage Pro displays the acquired images before recognizing them. If you decide not to draw any zones on the pages and continue with OCR, all pages will be recognized. However, if you draw zones on at least one page, only those pages that have zones will be recognized.

Direct OCR menu items may not be removed from earlier versions of MS Office applications

· After uninstalling OmniPage Pro, the “Acquire Text” and “Acquire Text Settings” menu items may remain in the earlier versions of MS Office applications. If you select any of these menu items, you will get an appropriate warning message from the MS Office application saying that OmniPage Pro is not available. To remove the items from the File menu, use the Tools/Customize dialog box of the MS Office applications.

Application does not get registered for use with Direct OCR, although it was added to the list of registered applications

· If you try to register a running application in OmniPage Pro for Direct OCR by using the Add button on the Options/Direct OCR dialog and the application does not get registered (that is, it does not appear on the Registered list after you re-open the dialog), use the Browse button to locate the application in its installation directory and add it again to the registered applications.

Acquire Text and Acquire Text Settings do not appear in the File menu of registered applications

· If this happens, you should activate another application and then re-activate the registered application (for example, by clicking on them or using the ALT+TAB key combination). Another way to resolve the problem is to minimize and then restore the registered application. After this, the menu items should appear in the File menu. This issue typically occurs with Windows 95.

Using Direct OCR to insert text in applications that support multiple documents

· Some applications that support multiple open documents may start with no open document. To make sure that the recognized text is inserted into your application, make sure you have an open document. Typically you do it by selecting “New” in the File menu.

Using Direct OCR for processing documents with graphics

· Graphics in the original document are usually identified by OmniPage Pro and if the appropriate option is enabled, will also be exported with the output document. This applies both to normal exporting and using Direct OCR. However, some applications will not accept graphics when using Direct OCR. Microsoft Power Point and Excel are identified as such applications.

Using Direct OCR from within Corel WordPerfect and Microsoft PowerPoint

· When you are using Direct OCR in Corel WordPerfect and Microsoft PowerPoint and “True Page” or “Retain flowing columns” is selected as Output Format on the Format tab of the Acquire Text Settings dialog box, documents will be transferred to those applications in “Retain font and paragraph formatting” mode and not in the mode selected. This restriction is applied in case of the above applications to avoid inserting documents with incorrect layout.

Using Direct OCR from within Quattro Pro 7 and 8

· When you are using Direct OCR in Quattro Pro 7 or 8, text will not be placed into your document automatically at the end of the recognition process. However, it is placed on the Clipboard. You can use the Edit menu of your Quattro Pro application to paste the recognized text into your document.

Direct OCR does not support Corel Word Perfect 6.0 and 7.0

· Although the Direct OCR menu items appear in the file menu of Corel Word Perfect 6.0 and 7.0, recognized text is not transferred correctly into those applications. To use OmniPage Pro 11.0 with Corel Word Perfect 6.0 and 7.0, export your documents from OmniPage Pro to one of the supported Word Perfect file types and open it in Corel Word Perfect 6.0 or 7.0.

Direct OCR does not support Corel Word Perfect 10.0

· The Direct OCR menu items are not inserted in the file menu of Corel Word Perfect 10.0 and therefore you cannot use it from that application. To use OmniPage Pro 11.0 with Corel Word Perfect 10.0, export your documents from OmniPage Pro to one of the supported Word Perfect file types and open it in Corel Word Perfect 10.0.

Multiple Direct OCR menu items may appear in Microsoft Office 97 applications if OmniPage Pro 11.0 is installed on a computer with OmniPage Limited Edition

· If you have OmniPage Limited Edition on your computer (it may have come bundled with your scanner) and install OmniPage Pro 11.0, multiple Direct OCR menu items may appear. Some of the menu items may be duplicated. To avoid confusion and to use OmniPage Pro with Direct OCR it is recommended you remove the Direct OCR menu items created by OmniPage Limited Edition. To do this, complete the following steps (please note that in OmniPage Limited Edition Direct OCR was called OCR Aware.):
1. Launch OmniPage Limited Edition.
2. Select “OCR Aware” from the tools menu. A dialog box will be displayed.
3. Click “Register Office 97”. Another dialog box appears.
4. Select the option “Uninstall OCR Aware support for Microsoft Office 97”.
5. Close the dialog boxes by clicking OK. You will be notified that the OCR Aware support has been successfully uninstalled.

Pay special attention when setting up a job to process files using Schedule OCR

· Make sure that the files you want to process with Schedule OCR are all image files. If OmniPage Pro encounters a file during processing that cannot be loaded, the processing stops. If you are not present at your computer (as is typical with Schedule OCR), the scheduled job will not be completed until you remove the offending file. Once the file is removed, re-start the process.

Recommended screen resolution to view the Text Editor’s Formatting toolbar

· To make sure that the Text Editor’s Formatting toolbar is completely visible, select the option “Above and Below” in the View menu and use at least 800x600 screen resolution.

Scanner Support

OmniPage Pro supports scanners that are controlled by TWAIN or WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) scanner drivers. OmniPage Pro supports any fully TWAIN- or WIA-compliant scanner or other input device that can supply at least a binary (black and white) image in a supported resolution (200 to 600 dots per inch). Please note that the WIA standard is supported on Windows Me only.

TWAIN source drivers (.ds files) must be provided by the scanner manufacturer. When these are installed on your PC, they are located in the Windows folder in the TWAIN, TWAIN_32, or TWAIN32 folder. OmniPage Pro provides a TWAIN interface that communicates with these TWAIN source drivers.

Common scanners are tested and tuned for use with OmniPage Pro. Tuning is done with scanner hints that specify the best use and optimal settings. OmniPage Pro includes a Scanner Setup Wizard that will make an effort to automatically test and optimize your scanner for use with OmniPage Pro. You can find its shortcut next to that of OmniPage Pro in the Windows Start menu. You can also launch it at any time by selecting Setup in OmniPage Pro’s Option dialog box (Tools/Options/Scanner). Scanner Setup Wizard is launched automatically after installation when you first attempt to scan a document or first open the Tools/Options/Scanner dialog box. This ensures that your scanner is optimized before you start scanning documents.

Scanner Technical Notes

This section discusses a number of points relating to using scanners with OmniPage Pro. Since scanners change frequently, please refer to http://support.scansoft.com/suppscan for the most recent information about OmniPage Pro and scanner compatibility. If you are having problems with your scanner, please contact the scanner manufacturer for assistance. Often, scanner manufacturers provide web sites that provide the latest scanner drivers, answers to frequently asked questions, and other information about their products. Again, your scanner must be working independently of OmniPage Pro prior to connecting it to OmniPage Pro.

Resolution used for scanning documents

· For most OCR jobs, scanning should be done at 300 dpi resolution. This resolution is automatically set and used by OmniPage Pro. You can set a different resolution on the TWAIN driver user interface if it is enabled. You can enable the display of the TWAIN user interface in the Scanner Setup Wizard.

Black and White vs. Grayscale and Color scanning

· Scanning in binary (black and white or line art) mode will provide you with the fastest processing. However, on most documents grayscale will provide more accurate results, especially on degraded or shaded background documents. Use color scanning only if you want to retain color information and/or color graphics in your document.

TWAIN drivers User Interface

· Some TWAIN source drivers, when activated, may display their own user interface window behind OmniPage Pro's main window. To access the TWAIN interface, press ALT+TAB and tab to the TWAIN screen.

Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)

· The Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) device driver interface is supported on Windows Me systems. If a WIA device driver is available for your scanner, it is recommended that you scan using the WIA interface and not install a TWAIN scanner driver on Windows Me.

Scanning legal size pages

· Many flatbed scanners do not have a platen large enough for a legal page. These scanners will scan to their platen length if you select "Legal" page size. To scan legal size pages on scanners whose platens are smaller than legal page size, you must use an ADF (Automatic Document Feeder).

· TWAIN drivers may allow you to select legal page size in the Page Type tab of the Settings dialog box even when this size is not available.

Be sure to properly setup you scanner to run with OmniPage

· After you have installed OmniPage Pro 11, it is necessary to run the Scanner Setup Wizard all the way through to Finish at least once before you can use your scanner properly with OmniPage. For some scanners, it will be necessary to run the complete diagnostic test of the Scanner Setup Wizard to properly optimize the scanner for use with OmniPage Pro 11. Some scanners have been tested and optimized with OmniPage 11 already. For these scanners, it is still necessary to run the Scanner Setup Wizard to Finish for the optimization to take effect. When you run OmniPage for the first time, it will automatically run the Scanner Wizard when you select any scanning function. Your scanner may, or may not already be optimized for OmniPage. The following paragraphs describe the first few steps in either case:

· The first Wizard page has Test and Configure current Scanning Source button checked:

Your scanner needs to be optimized to run with OmniPage Pro 11. Leave this button checked and select "Next". Follow the instructions on the next Wizard pages to test and optimize your scanner for OmniPage Pro 11.

· The first Wizard page has Use Current Settings checked:

Your scanner has already been optimized for OmniPage but the Wizard still needs to be run to Finish before the optimization to take effect. Leave this button checked and select Next. On the next Wizard page, select Finish.

NOTE: You should not cancel from within the Scanner Setup Wizard unless you have already ran the Scanner Setup Wizard to Finish at least once with your scanner.

· If you have problems running the Scanner Setup Wizard from within OmniPage, do the following:

Exit OmniPage
Shutdown and restart Windows
From the Windows Start menu, run the Scanner Wizard
Start -> Programs -> OmniPage Pro 11.0 -> Scanner Wizard

· If the scanner you wish to run is showing under Scanning source:, make sure Test and configure current scanning source is checked.

1. Select Next and follow the instructions on the following pages to optimize your scanner for OmniPage.

· If your scanner is not shown under Scanning source:, make sure Select scanning source is checked and Select "Next".

1. On the next page, make sure the scanner you wish to use is selected. On most systems, you will only see your scanner and No scanner in the list.

2. Select Next.

3. On the next page, make sure that Yes is checked.

4. Select Next and follow the instructions to optimize your scanner for use with OmniPage.

Installing Scanners on Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000

· Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000 have built in TWAIN drivers for a few scanners. You will get better results with OmniPage on these systems if you install the TWAIN software that came with the scanner. Before doing so, it is best to check the web site of the scanner manufacturer to see if an updated version of the TWAIN driver, or a patch is available.

Installing Scanners on Windows Me

· Windows Me has built-in scanner drivers for several scanners. These are WIA (Windows Imaging Architecture) drivers. WIA is a new Microsoft standard. If Microsoft has provided a built-in driver for your scanner for Windows Me, you should use the built-in WIA driver and not install the TWAIN driver that came with the scanner. Check the Web site of the scanner manufacturer for information about using your scanner with Windows Me.

Check the following Microsoft web address for information on WIA drivers on Windows Me:
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/wia/winme_wiadrv.htm

Scanning in color with HP Scanners That Use PrecisionScan LT

The HP scanner dialog has a Scan in color checkbox that must be checked before OmniPage Pro can scan in color with HP scanners that use any version of PrecisionScan LT.