<b><i>Product Review:</b></i> Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0: Experience Efficiency

One of the basic challenges to law firms since the advent of the PC has always been how to convert paper documents into a searchable or editable electronic format. Most scanning devices will produce a non-searchable PDF file. At the same time, many of the document conversion products create an electronic format that is fraught with inaccuracies, little or no layout retention, and, in no way complies with legal requirements that we must have; ergo retyping, reformatting and additional proofreading comes into play, wasting office time and money in the process.

I have been using a product for many years that has continued to improve itself with each new version. I am speaking of Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0, which comes in two editions, Corporate and Professional, from the folks at Abbyyusa.com.

I use the Corporate Edition, for networking purposes, and I find that Abbyy keeps improving each edition with intelligent document and PDF conversion, allowing legal professionals to accurately and effortlessly convert paper, PDF files and even photographs into an editable and searchable document that allows them to be more productive and efficient, while virtually eliminating the need to retype the document.

Many of us face discovery problems at the office every day, raising the need to copy hundreds of pages of documents and the attendant copying charges associated therein. With the new FineReader 9.0, you have the ability to utilize that new digital camera you got for the holidays, and have the ability to capture all those documents and then convert them.

FineReader 9.0's optical character recognition (OCR) software automatically identifies photographic elements, detects resolution quality, corrects image distortion, straightens open book curves and offers a split-page view. So with the new CameraOCR, you can take a photo of any document while you are on the go and convert it to a Microsoft Word file or a searchable PDF with one mouse click.

Many of the document conversion software products on the market today have a limitation regarding the processing of documents at the page level. They also do not have the ability to maintain the true original formatting elements across a multiple page document, nor even maintain the true text flow of the document. Abbyy has solved this in its new version. They have come up with a proprietary technology called Adaptive Document Recognition Technology, known as ADRT'.

Product Benefits

With this new technology, FineReader can accurately detect and preserve native Microsoft Office formatting elements throughout the resulting document, which includes text with true flow, headers and footers, page numbers, footnotes, images, tables, captions, fonts and font styles. Abbyy gives you an example of what 9.0 can do to correctly preserve items such as footnotes by showing you that it can correctly preserve all of the footnote formatting and corresponding links in the resulting Microsoft Word files. You can easily view or edit the legal footnotes with a simple click on the footnote reference marks that are located with the text.

Keep in mind that FineReader 9.0 will convert documents into a fully searchable PDF or even editable format like Word, in 179 languages, while at the same time giving a conversion accuracy of over 99.7% (based on Abbyy's internal test results). And remember, as mentioned earlier, since 9.0 retains the layouts and formatting elements, you have the ability to preserve all the evidence to be used in any of your contested matters, i.e., litigation investigation, as well as store all your information for purposes of e-discovery.

This new version of the software has been designed with the legal professional in mind, being equipped with a legal dictionaries, advanced imaging pre-processing, and document tuning tools, allowing the maximum in conversion accuracy, while it preserves elements that are most particular to our profession, such as signatures in contracts, or settlement agreements, and even line numbering found in many pleading documents.

Most of the common tasks in FineReader can be accomplished with one mouse click. With its predefined QuickTask menu, you just click the desired item and just like that, you're done, saving you time and effort to try and figure out what you need to do. In addition to all this, 9.0 will work with XP and Vista, and even has 64 bit Edition support. Likewise, it supports the new Office 2007, GIF, and XPS. It also has new output formats such as the new PDF/A, DOCX and XLSX. For corporate users you now have the ability to monitor input folders or even schedule OCR processing with the new mailbox-watching function that allows FineReader to recognize attachments received by e-mail, like those that are automatically sent from many of the MFPs (multifunction printers).

Conclusion

If you have been using FineReader Edition 8.0, it really is time to move ahead with all of the new improvements of 9.0 and give yourself, your staff and your firm the ability to have an average of 35% more accuracy over 8.0, as well as new tools and an innovative interface redesign that provides more user productivity with less steps and effort being spent on all of your OCR tasks. I know that with the new Abbyy FineReader 9.0, in either edition, you definitely will experience efficiency; I know we have at my firm.

One of the basic challenges to law firms since the advent of the PC has always been how to convert paper documents into a searchable or editable electronic format. Most scanning devices will produce a non-searchable PDF file. At the same time, many of the document conversion products create an electronic format that is fraught with inaccuracies, little or no layout retention, and, in no way complies with legal requirements that we must have; ergo retyping, reformatting and additional proofreading comes into play, wasting office time and money in the process.

I have been using a product for many years that has continued to improve itself with each new version. I am speaking of Abbyy FineReader OCR 9.0, which comes in two editions, Corporate and Professional, from the folks at Abbyyusa.com.

I use the Corporate Edition, for networking purposes, and I find that Abbyy keeps improving each edition with intelligent document and PDF conversion, allowing legal professionals to accurately and effortlessly convert paper, PDF files and even photographs into an editable and searchable document that allows them to be more productive and efficient, while virtually eliminating the need to retype the document.

Many of us face discovery problems at the office every day, raising the need to copy hundreds of pages of documents and the attendant copying charges associated therein. With the new FineReader 9.0, you have the ability to utilize that new digital camera you got for the holidays, and have the ability to capture all those documents and then convert them.

FineReader 9.0's optical character recognition (OCR) software automatically identifies photographic elements, detects resolution quality, corrects image distortion, straightens open book curves and offers a split-page view. So with the new CameraOCR, you can take a photo of any document while you are on the go and convert it to a Microsoft Word file or a searchable PDF with one mouse click.

Many of the document conversion software products on the market today have a limitation regarding the processing of documents at the page level. They also do not have the ability to maintain the true original formatting elements across a multiple page document, nor even maintain the true text flow of the document. Abbyy has solved this in its new version. They have come up with a proprietary technology called Adaptive Document Recognition Technology, known as ADRT'.

Product Benefits

With this new technology, FineReader can accurately detect and preserve native Microsoft Office formatting elements throughout the resulting document, which includes text with true flow, headers and footers, page numbers, footnotes, images, tables, captions, fonts and font styles. Abbyy gives you an example of what 9.0 can do to correctly preserve items such as footnotes by showing you that it can correctly preserve all of the footnote formatting and corresponding links in the resulting Microsoft Word files. You can easily view or edit the legal footnotes with a simple click on the footnote reference marks that are located with the text.

Keep in mind that FineReader 9.0 will convert documents into a fully searchable PDF or even editable format like Word, in 179 languages, while at the same time giving a conversion accuracy of over 99.7% (based on Abbyy's internal test results). And remember, as mentioned earlier, since 9.0 retains the layouts and formatting elements, you have the ability to preserve all the evidence to be used in any of your contested matters, i.e., litigation investigation, as well as store all your information for purposes of e-discovery.

This new version of the software has been designed with the legal professional in mind, being equipped with a legal dictionaries, advanced imaging pre-processing, and document tuning tools, allowing the maximum in conversion accuracy, while it preserves elements that are most particular to our profession, such as signatures in contracts, or settlement agreements, and even line numbering found in many pleading documents.

Most of the common tasks in FineReader can be accomplished with one mouse click. With its predefined QuickTask menu, you just click the desired item and just like that, you're done, saving you time and effort to try and figure out what you need to do. In addition to all this, 9.0 will work with XP and Vista, and even has 64 bit Edition support. Likewise, it supports the new Office 2007, GIF, and XPS. It also has new output formats such as the new PDF/A, DOCX and XLSX. For corporate users you now have the ability to monitor input folders or even schedule OCR processing with the new mailbox-watching function that allows FineReader to recognize attachments received by e-mail, like those that are automatically sent from many of the MFPs (multifunction printers).

Conclusion

If you have been using FineReader Edition 8.0, it really is time to move ahead with all of the new improvements of 9.0 and give yourself, your staff and your firm the ability to have an average of 35% more accuracy over 8.0, as well as new tools and an innovative interface redesign that provides more user productivity with less steps and effort being spent on all of your OCR tasks. I know that with the new Abbyy FineReader 9.0, in either edition, you definitely will experience efficiency; I know we have at my firm.