Solutions Report. ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional OVERVIEW

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1 ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional Solutions Report A BLI Network Device Management Software Assessment MARCH 2014 Not Rated Feature Set Value Ease of Setup Ease of Use Accuracy Compatibility Software Integration Security Reseller Support and Training Customer Support and Training Documentation Global Business Readiness Upgrade Path OVERVIEW ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional Edition is an optical character recognition (OCR) solution designed to help businesses convert static image files to text-searchable, editable digital documents. Images can be imported from the desktop, a digital camera, cloud repositories, and from any TWAIN- or WIA-compliant scan device. FineReader Professional is tailored for the small to medium-size business market and departments within larger organizations. ABBYY offers Fine- Reader 12 Corporate for those that need a networked solution. A FineReader cloud service is also available for ad hoc OCR jobs.

2 BLI Recommendation ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional boasts several accuracy and performance increases over the previous version, which is evident in the excellent OCR performance exhibited during BLI s testing. In addition, the new Windows 8-style interface provides an easily navigable design suitable for even the novice user. But the robust feature set and overall functionality that earned its predecessors BLI s praise remain intact. The program is particularly easy to set up and use thanks to a wizard-driven installation routine and a self-explanatory user interface. Unlike other OCR solutions tested, FineReader 12 Professional offers users 24 different interface languages upon setup and can OCR 190 languages out of box more languages than available with any other OCR solution tested. As with version 11, the program s workflow customization capabilities are reserved for the Corporate version, which also includes batch processing and hot folders. But redaction capabilities are now available at the Professional level. ABBYY Fine- Reader 12 Professional continues to be a very easy to use solution suitable to any organization looking for comprehensive OCR functionality at an affordable price. Strengths Weaknesses Above average OCR accuracy for all documents tested Includes a variety of advanced editing and OCR features, such as vertical text recognition, the ability to recognize up to 190 languages, image enhancements and custom OCR areas Exports to electronic book and publication file formats Supports ODT output formats Easy to setup and use Better than average format retention capabilities Scan-to-cloud functionality Manual redaction tool Customized tasks only available with Corporate version 2

3 Feature Set ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional includes most of the features buyers of an OCR solution are likely to need, such as image enhancements, zonal OCR and more. In addition, users can import and OCR images from a connected scanner or a digital camera. FineReader Professional supports exportation to most OpenOffice and Microsoft Office file formats, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Unlike some other OCR solutions available, FineReader Professional also supports DjVu files, an alternative to PDF, as well as PDF/A, EPUB, FB2 and ODT. Users have the ability to save files as HTML output for Web and e-book reading as well. The product also allows users to send results directly to their Amazon Kindle account. ABBYY s proprietary Adaptive Document Recognition Technology (ADRT) helps maintain challenging formatting attributes, such as tables of contents, hierarchical headings, headers, footers, margin notes, captions of tables and diagrams, and additional font styles. Documents output as Word files can maintain headings and table of content links. And a typewriter mode helps process legacy documents created by typewriters. Multiple pre-programmed Tasks are available upon setup. Conveniently, Tasks are grouped into five categories: Common, Word, Excel, Adobe PDF and Other. Selecting one of those five choices delivers a list of the available tasks for that category. Once a task is selected, the document is scanned or opened and sent to the native application or file with minimal user intervention. And the Task menu s titles change depending on the software installed. For example, if the computer has OpenOffice instead of Word, the Word tasks will be renamed OpenOffice tasks. However, users cannot save frequently used workflows on the Task menu. That is a feature reserved for the more robust Corporate version. Product Profile Product: Version: 12 Software Developer: System Requirements: Supported Devices: Suggested Retail Price: ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional ABBYY Inc. 1-GHz processor; 1-GB RAM; 1.7-GB hard drive space; Microsoft Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, Server 2012, Windows 8 Any TWAIN or WIA-compliant scanning platform Pricing starts at $ for a single license 3

4 Options Window Users can customize OCR areas for text, pictures, tables, background images and barcode zones. FineReader Professional also supports a whopping 190 languages without having to purchase separate connectors most other OCR solutions tested offer standard recognition for between 120 to 130 different languages. Plus, users don t have to specify a language prior to processing documents; FineReader Professional recognizes them automatically, including documents with multiple languages in one. However, to aid in processing, users can custom build a list of frequently used languages available as a drop-down menu from the Task window. A variety of image enhancements can be performed, including de-skew, straighten text lines, photo correction, trapezium distortion correction, rotate/flip, split, crop, invert, brightness/contrast, levels, erase and remove color marks. Image enhancements are made by selecting Edit Image from the Image view screen, which brings up the Image Editor. And the split document tool allows users to import or scan an image and then rearrange the pages into new documents by dragging and dropping them into the new document slot. 4

5 Image Editor Additional features include the ability to whiten the background of a document to improve OCR accuracy; auto crop multiple images; remove color stamps and pens on business documents; and smooth pixelated character on output PDFs via the solution s PreciseScan technology. Users can choose to OCR select text or data rather than the entire document. What s new in FineReader 12 Professional Claimed 30% accuracy increase over previous version when recreating charts and graphs Claimed 40% accuracy increase over previous version when recreating and detecting tables Claimed 20% accuracy increase over previous version when recognizing Asian languages Claimed 15% accuracy increase over previous version when recognizing Arabic Claimed 10% accuracy increase over previous version when recognizing Hebrew Claimed 15% speed increase Ability to perform OCR in the background Enhanced hot folders and scheduling (Corporate version only) Enhanced verification tools 5

6 Value FineReader 12 Professional has a suggested retail price of $ for one user license, which is a lower price than leading competing OCR packages. However, that lower price includes fewer features than offered by some competitive products. An upgrade from a previous version is available for $99.99, which is a lower upgrade price than offered by some competitors. ABBYY FineReader Pro for Mac is available for $99.99, or users can upgrade from a previous Mac versions for $ ABBYY FineReader Corporate Edition is $399.99, with an upgrade price of $ Technical support is free of charge, which is not always the case with other programs. A 30-day free trial of FineReader 12 Professional is available for download at the ABBYY website. All told, the pricing makes FineReader Professional a very compelling value for organizations that need more than basic OCR conversion. Ease of Setup FineReader Professional features an automated Quick Install wizard to help customers get up and running quickly. With the Professional edition, each purchased copy of the software must be installed on one PC at a time. (For deployment across an entire fleet of PCs, ABBYY offers the Corporate edition.) The software installation is very straightforward. Once installed, users are greeted with the Task window, which offers a variety of pre-set workflows to choose from. Users can also choose to not have the Task window open upon startup. Task Window 6

7 Although the Task Window offers a variety of custom jobs, users cannot customize any task, or add personal Tasks to the list, which is unlike most other OCR solutions tested. Setting up Area, or zonal OCR, templates is also simple. Users simply draw and designate the desired OCR zones in a document that will be similar to others scanned; go to the Area menu from the toolbar; and click Save Area Template. Users then name the template and click Save. For users who frequently OCR documents with a combination of languages, OCR language groups can be created. Although the program can automatically detect up to 190 languages, grouping certain languages together and defining troublesome, hard-to-ocr characters prior to processing can increase OCR speed and accuracy. Ease of Use Getting documents into FineReader 12 Professional is uncomplicated and can be accomplished in a variety of ways. As mentioned, the Task window that appears upon startup is separated into five job menus: Common, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe PDF and Other. The Common tab by default is the first menu shown and includes the following OCR jobs: Scan to Microsoft Word, Image or PDF File to Microsoft Word, Scan to PDF, Image File to PDF, Quick Scan, Quick Open and Scan and Save as Image. The Microsoft Word menu contains the same Microsoft Word-related jobs as the Common menu, but includes a job to send photos to Microsoft Word, as well as additional document options, such as whether to keep pictures and/or headers and footers. The Excel menu includes Scan to Microsoft Excel, Image or PDF File to Microsoft Excel and Photos to Microsoft Excel, as well as some additional document options. The Adobe PDF menu includes the same PDF selections as the Common menu, as well as a Photo to PDF job and additional document options. The Other menu s options include: Scan to HTML, Image or PDF File to HTML, Scan to EPUB, Image or PDF File to EPUB, Scan to Other Formats and Image or PDF File to Other Formats. A dedicated Task button on the toolbar provides easy access to the Task menu as well. Scan Window 7

8 Users can import documents by dragging and dropping them into the FineReader view screen, clicking on the Open icon from the toolbar, clicking on the Scanner icon from the toolbar, or by selecting either Open or Scan Pages from the File menu. When importing a document via a connected scanner, the scan window appears prompting users to select the scan settings and either preview the scanned document or begin scanning. Once the Scan button in the software is pressed, the scan window disappears and a progress window appears. The scan window pops up again after the document is scanned into FineReader, which may come in handy if additional documents need scanning. By default, images imported into FineReader are automatically analyzed and OCRed; however, this can be changed to a manual format. And users can draw customized OCR zones for text, images, tables, a background image and barcodes, for example. OCRed documents can be saved by pressing the drop-down arrow next to the Save symbol in the document viewer and selecting a location from the list, or by selecting a save destination from the File menu. The save icon in the document viewer changes depending on the last output file selected. So if a user saved the document as a PDF, the Acrobat symbol would appear. If it was saved as a Word document, then the Word symbol would appear. Recognized Document During the OCR process, ABBYY FineReader can also learn as it OCRs via the training tool. By default, training is set to Use only built-in patterns. From the Read tab, users can choose to keep the default setting, or enable Use built-in and user patterns or Use only user pattern. A pattern editor button and a How to use training to improve recognition quality link are also provided on this tab. 8

9 Users can choose from two OCR modes: thorough reading and fast reading. Thorough reading analyzes and recognizes more complex documents, including those with text on colored backgrounds and complex tables; fast reading is recommended when large volumes with relatively simple layouts need to be processed. This gives the user the option of choosing speed over accuracy, or vice versa. By default the software is set for thorough reading. ABBYY Screenshot Reader, which allows users to turn screenshots into editable text files, comes bundled with FineReader Professional. Accuracy To test the OCR accuracy of FineReader 12 Professional, BLI OCRed its four-page OCR test document, which includes 32 sets of the same sentence (containing all of the letters of the alphabet and numbers 0 through 9), with half the text of each page in a different color (black, blue, red and green), and the other half of each page printed in negative, with white text dropped out of a solid color background, and with half of the characters in Arial font and half of the characters in Times New Roman at various point sizes and styles. All documents were scanned via a dedicated document scanner at 200 and 300 dpi using default settings. The results were compared against OCR-capable solutions tested to date. When scanning at both 200 and 300 dpi, ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional s OCR accuracy was higher than average for all documents tested. ABBYY OCR Accuracy Using Default Settings Competitive Average (Percent) 200 dpi 300 dpi Black Red Blue Green

10 Compatibility FineReader 12 Professional supports scanning of hard-copy documents into the system from any TWAIN or WIA-compliant scanner or MFP, which is similar to other OCR solutions tested to date. FineReader 12 Professional runs under Microsoft Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 (including R2) and Windows 7. FineReader Pro is available for Mac users. The solution works with new gesture technology available on new operating systems that recognize basic touch gestures to scroll and zoom on desktop and laptop PCs with touch screens. As mentioned, users can also import images from a connected digital camera, which is competitive with other solutions tested. Information can be uploaded to an e-reader, such as Amazon Kindle, or smartphone device as well. Software Integration FineReader 12 Professional integrates with OpenOffice, Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat and Reader so that once an image is sent as an ODT or Word document, or PDF, for example, the native application can be launched. This feature can also be disabled so that the native application does not automatically open when saving. The solution works with Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive, and Microsoft SharePoint Online/Office 365 cloud storage locations. FineReader Professional offers SharePoint integration on open/save dialogs. However, FineReader Corporate connects with Microsoft SharePoint repositories, if SharePoint is already set up, and any other compatible network resource, such as a website or online library, which is typical of OCR solutions tested to date. Security As this solution is traditionally sold in single licenses, the username and password used to access the PC should be sufficient to safeguard the program and document repositories from unauthorized access. In addition, documents can be saved and exported as encrypted PDFs. 10

11 In addition, the product offers a manual redaction features that allows users to black out sensitive data after recognition. In the previous version, redaction was only available on the Corporate version. Company Profile Vendor: ABBYY Software House, Inc. Phone: Web: Status: Privately held Employees: over 1,000 Reseller Support and Training Not Rated Since the solution is generally sold by traditional and online retail outlets, reseller support and training is not provided by ABBYY. Customer Support and Training ABBYY provides customer support free of charge to registered users via toll-free phone and online services. After registering their product, users can go to the ABBYY website to access the technical support number, support address or go directly to the customer support portal. 11

12 An sent to the support address was answered about an hour after being sent. After registering through the support portal via the provided URL on the customer support page, a technical support representative answered our query through the customer support portal in a matter of minutes. ABBYY does not list the hours of operation for calling its technical support line on its website. According to the phone recording, ABBYY s hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Pacific time. In addition, the phone number listed on the website is actually ABBYY Inc. s main line (in the U.S.) instead of a direct support line. If a receptionist answers and is able to direct the call to the technical support line, customers are then greeted with an automated message encouraging customers to go online instead. However, after the message, they are immediately directed to a technical support representative. Documentation FineReader Professional features a help file with very good information about the software and an eight-page quick start guide. Plus, ABBYY offers a 109-page downloadable user manual with easy to understand instructions, helpful screenshots and a hyperlinked table of contents. Global Business Readiness ABBYY has offices around the world, including the United States, Germany, Russia, Japan, the UK, Taiwan, the Ukraine and Cyprus. This multi-lingual solution offers one version with 24 different interface languages to choose from, which eliminates the need for corporations to purchase different language versions unlike some other OCR programs available. In addition, product manuals and other documentation are available in the language of the region it is sold in. Upgrade Path Should users outgrow FineReader 12 Professional, ABBYY has the more robust FineReader 12 Corporate, which offers network installation features to quickly and easily place FineReader on every desktop on the network. FineReader Corporate 12

13 also offers concurrent licensing, hot folders, the ability to save custom workflows and automated batch scanning and processing. Plus, ABBYY offers a FineReader cloud service, which allows users to upload a certain amount of digital files and OCR them in the cloud. When upgrading from a previous version of FineReader Professional, users can purchase the upgrade package at a discounted rate and install the program. During the installation, the software will prompt the user to uninstall any previous versions and install the latest, which is typical of this software type. Service packs, firmware and patches can be downloaded to the product from the ABBYY website. Buyers Laboratory LLC North America Europe Asia John Lawler, CEO Anthony F. Polifrone, Managing Director Gerry O Rourke, Managing Director, BLI International Patti Clyne, Senior VP of Sales Joe Douress, Chief Marketing and Product Officer Daria Hoffman, Managing Editor Dr. Simon Plumtree, European Managing Editor Lynn Nannariello, Assistant Managing Editor Tracie Hines, Senior Editor, Competitive Analysis Reports Jamie Bsales, Senior Product Editor, Solutions George Mikolay, Senior Product Editor, A3 MFPs Marlene Orr, Senior Product Editor, Printers and A4 MFPs Lisa Reider, Senior Product Editor, Scanners and Environmental Carl Schell, Senior Writer Priya Gohil, Senior Editor Jessica Schiffenhaus, Associate Editor Kaitlin Pendagast, Research Editor David Sweetnam, Head of European Research and Lab Services Pete Emory, Manager of Laboratory Testing Martin Sloane, European Lab Manager Pia Beddiges, Manager of Competitive Services T.R. Patrick, Art Director Anthony Marchesini, IT Director 13