Rating: 
Summary: Caution!
Review: I bought this instead of an upgrade for my old Omnipage, because of the reviews I read here. Bad mistake! It comes with an odd-ball install program that incorporates both a floppy disk and a CD. It was impossible to install the program from the floppy disk, because the floppy-disk install program crashed my system every time I tried. The manufacturer did not respond to my email request for assistance.It was possible to install from the CD, but that installation is for a trial period only, after which the program presumably goes dormant until you re-purchase it. I returned the software for a refund of my purchase price.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome product...stinky customer support
Review: I bought this software, primarily on the basis of the reviews on Amazon. It installed easily...and I should note that although I've used several scanning packages, this is the first one I've bought. The capabilities of the software are truely awesome...some real virtuousity is clearly evident. Tables and text scan easily and flawlessly into every kind of file I can think of. Amazing. The problem I have with Finereader 5.0 Pro it is really two-fold. First, the manual is pathetic...nowhere would one discover how to use the product, much less what it is capable of delivering, if s/he relied on the manual. It just doesn't make sense and has loads of omissions. Second, the email support is literally useless...I don't really think there is anything but an email address at the other end... No response, at all. I was about 15 minutes from returning the whole box when I tried something completely illogical to change the scanner settings, when, Voila! The thing started working. Whatever, you do...don't rely on the manual. A good technical writer with several weeks' experience with this package could earn this company a lot of grateful and loyal customers. Are you ABBYY guys listening?
Rating:
Summary: Awesome product...stinky customer support
Review: I bought this software, primarily on the basis of the reviews on Amazon. It installed easily...and I should note that although I've used several scanning packages, this is the first one I've bought. The capabilities of the software are truely awesome...some real virtuousity is clearly evident. Tables and text scan easily and flawlessly into every kind of file I can think of. Amazing. The problem I have with Finereader 5.0 Pro it is really two-fold. First, the manual is pathetic...nowhere would one discover how to use the product, much less what it is capable of delivering, if s/he relied on the manual. It just doesn't make sense and has loads of omissions. Second, the email support is literally useless...I don't really think there is anything but an email address at the other end... No response, at all. I was about 15 minutes from returning the whole box when I tried something completely illogical to change the scanner settings, when, Voila! The thing started working. Whatever, you do...don't rely on the manual. A good technical writer with several weeks' experience with this package could earn this company a lot of grateful and loyal customers. Are you ABBYY guys listening?
Rating: 
Summary: Best Little OCR Program I've Seen
Review: I have tried ocr software from time to time over the last decade or so and, each time, have given up in frustration. At last, ocr that really works. Accurate enough to make it worth the trouble, works from a scanner or a variety of common graphics files, well designed, easy to use, and outputs to non-Microsoft formats like WordPerfect. All this for less than [price]. They've even got a free full featured demo that works 30 times or 30 days. It took me only one session to decide to buy.
Rating:
Summary: Abby FineReader is a Fine Reader
Review: I haven't used it extensively yet, but my first impression is-impressive! I scanned in a finacial statement that was organized in rows and columns. I scanned it into Excel without any errors and it put everything in to right row and column. The only problem was it didn't align the header row properly, but that was easy to fix. I liked it's interface and dictionary spell checker. It's easy to use and very reasonably price.
Rating:
Summary: FineReader 5.0 beats Omnipage 11 and Textbridge 2k
Review: I scan books that are in the public domain, which is a demanding task for OCR software. The bottom line is that the Abbyy FineReader Pro v5.0 is THE BEST OCR software on the market right now. It far surpasses Scansoft's Textbridge Millennium. The only thing that even gives FineReader Pro 5.0 any competition is Scansoft's OmniPage Pro 11, but FineReader is still far better. Since Scansoft bought out Textbridge (from Xerox) and bought out OmniPage (from Caere), you would think they could develop a superior product, but that's not so. Omnipage appears to be billed as an upgrade to Textbridge (I'm guessing that Scansoft is sending Textbridge to the graveyard). Scansoft claims in an advertisement that they spent a YEAR combining the programs. However, Scansoft did not even include rudimentary features of Textbridge in OmniPage 11. For instance, if you scan a book two pages at a time with the binding flat against the scanner (this is very common for older books that need to remain intact), Textbridge Millennium could split apart the pages using a dual-page mode. This was an extremely helpful if not critical feature for scanning books. However, this feature does not exist in OmniPage 11. FineReader on the other hand, can do this and more. It works great with Auto Document Feeders and it is far more accurate than OmniPage 11. Finally, FineReader's error/spell checker is once again far superior to OmniPage 11. The only single advantage that OmniPage 11 has over FineReader 5.0 is that it can import Adobe PDF documents for further OCR work. Otherwise FineReader Pro 5.0 is the way to go. Also, regarding a former review, FineReader allows you to exclude optional-hyphens in the output file. Check in the advanced section of the output format. Including them is not a mistake. It's actually quite impressive that the program knows those that are optional-hyphens and those that are not.
Rating:
Summary: beware of patches on website for NEW software
Review: I wish I had checked out the Abbyy website before I bought this. I might have been tipped off to potential problems if I had noticed not one but two separate patches to make this version work on my relatively new computer. But I didn't, and all I saw were the glowing reviews on Amazon. I have a standard, new-ish computer, and above-avg skills. I cannot get this program to work at all. The patches have been installed multiple times, and the program itself has been installed & reinstalled multiple times. Here's the worst part, however: emails to the company get nowhere. I've emailed several different addresses w/in the company, as indicated on the website, and have gotten no where. Their junk emails to me get well enough, though. I've tried to call, but never seem to hit any time when a person is there. Go figure. The upshot: don't get ripped off by this company. Once they have your money, they do not give a rat's behind whether the product works. Who knows? Maybe it really did work for all of the other people who reviewed it on this site. But I'm a little skeptical...I don't remember if anyone mentioned patches in their reviews. And I don't believe it is possible to install this program, on any machine no matter how old, w/o downloading a patch from the ABBYY website. My ultimate review: RUN LIKE THE WIND FROM THIS PRODUCT.
Rating:
Summary: Does a Great Job!!!
Review: I've been using FineReader Pro 5.0 for a week and I'm really pleased with the excellent job it does. My most critical need was to scan "grainy" pages--printouts of microfilm pages. These pages are scarred with scratches and blobs. FR does an unbelievable job of interpreting the text accurately. It lets you know where it has guessed, and it guesses right in the great majority of cases. It also highlights where guessing is impossible and lets me correct the text while looking at a blowup of the problem area. This saves me from having to locate the problem on the paper original. Another useful feature: the ability to scan the paper sideways and rotate it inside FR. All things considered, an extremely effective tool that gets the job done. It's hard to imagine software that would do the trick better. One minor quibble, since nothing is perfect. There are discrepancies between the printed manual and the software. For example, the manual shows the block cutting tool as being a button on the interface. In fact, it's in one of the drop-down menus.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST OCR at the BEST PRICE
Review: I've owned several different OCR programs (since the inception of OCR), Abbyy FineReader 5.0 Pro OCR is the best one I've ever used. I use it for reading both English and Greek, it is flawless. It is especially good at reading (flawlessly) small fonts (I've tested it on 8 pt. and newspaper articles). I can copy dual pages from books, and it will automatically format them in portrait, again flawlessly. This is the first OCR software I've had that requires only minor editing (only format, never extra wierd characters). I suspect the great price is because v.6 is being released.
Rating:
Summary: The BEST OCR at the BEST PRICE
Review: I've owned several different OCR programs (since the inception of OCR), Abbyy FineReader 5.0 Pro OCR is the best one I've ever used. I use it for reading both English and Greek, it is flawless. It is especially good at reading (flawlessly) small fonts (I've tested it on 8 pt. and newspaper articles). I can copy dual pages from books, and it will automatically format them in portrait, again flawlessly. This is the first OCR software I've had that requires only minor editing (only format, never extra wierd characters). I suspect the great price is because v.6 is being released.
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