Paperless Office Blog

The purpose of this blog is to discuss paperless office issues.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Omnipage, Acrobat Capture, Visioneer Strobe 450

One of our Denver Tax Paperless Office Letter subscribers inquired whether he should dump Omnipage Pro version 14 for Acrobat Capture. Omnipage and Acrobat Capture are competing OCR software programs. OCR software takes an image and makes it searchable. He liked Omnipage, but thought he should move to more Adobe products. I recommended that he stay with Omnipage. Omnipage is highly rated. Why learn another program that does the same thing. Several years back I heard that Acrobat Capture wasn't that good. I am not sure that is still the case, but, again, why change?

This subscriber also said that he had good luck with the Visioneer Strobe 450 scanner.

posted by Dave K @ 5:57 PM  

3 Comments:

  • At 8:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    OmniPage Pro 15 (just like 14) has a lot of problems and I would suggest potential buyers beware:
    - Tech support (email or phone) is fee-based ($9.95 per incident for email and $29.95 for phone!)
    - OmniPage now requires activation and the methodology is flawed. The server was down for me when I tried to activate. There is a limit to the number of activations and who knows how they count them?
    - Uninstallation does NOT remove all vestiges of the program. You must use regedit or other registry editor to remove references to Scansoft, OmniPage and Zeon if you have any problems installing the software (I did). This is tedious and inexcusable in my opinion.
    - Installation (especially if one or more attempts fails) leaves numerous entries in the registry which must be removed manually as described above
    - Customer service emails (free) require a pin and password
    - Adobe products also now require activation so they are even on that score (not sure about Acrobat Capture)

     

  • At 8:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    ... continued from previous post:

    - The download version of the installer (same price by the way) forces you to use C: drive. Mine was full and I had to delete a number of files just to make room. If you try to change any of the settings, it will not let you.
    - If you want to make a CD with all the installation files, you must pay an EXTRA $9.95. The download version when burned to a CD hangs and will not allow you to install it.

    All in all, ScanSoft has very poor customer service methods and policies, their installation routine is amateurish, and customers seem to be their last concern. Buyer beware ...

    John-Pierre M. Hannam, Sr.
    18 August 2005

     

  • At 8:05 AM, Blogger Dave K said…

    A very interesting comment! Why?

    When I did my original research in 2002, comments about OmniPage were mixed. Clearly reviews in publications gave OmniPage higher marks than what I was reading in the news groups.

    It could be that OmniPage has to be used in a real life situation before the blemishes appear.

    It could be that publishers don't want to step on ScanSoft's feet! ScanSoft does advertise a lot with the same publishers. Publishers won't admit to a connection between advertising and editorial reviews.

    It could be that OmniPage is outstanding, and the very few users that have difficulties are more vocal than those that have no problems at all.

     

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