Recognition Server settings

Scheduling allows you to process images from Input Folder at specific times. The schedule is set up per Workflow, so only one Input Folder submits images to the schedule. The schedule is set up in the Schedule dialog box that opens when you click the Schedule button on the Input tab of the Workflow Properties dialog box.

You can specify the start time, the end time, the duration of the Workflow activity, the recurrence pattern, and the start and end dates of the schedule.

ABBYY Recognition Server can run up to 32 workflows concurrently.

If several workflows are running, Recognition Server will process files from all these workflows simultaneously, within the single queue, arranging the files in the queue according to their import time and priorities.

You can select any priority level for a workflow, and documents within that workflow will be processed accordingly. The default priority for all workflows is Normal. The priority can be changed on the Input tab of the Workflow Properties dialog box.

In addition to the priority level, it is possible to schedule workflow processing. For example you can set up Recognition Server to run one workflow only on weekdays and another one on weekends. To activate the schedule on the Input tab, check “Run on schedule” option and set up the schedule you need.

If the Input folder contains images in nested subfolders, ABBYY Recognition Server will process images from all the subfolders, traversing them recursively. When publishing the processed files, it will automatically reproduce the subfolder structure in the Output and Exceptions folders.

The paths to folders and files specified via ABBYY Recognition Server interfaces must not exceed 256 characters.

Technically, there is no limit to how many files you can put into an Input folder at once.

When the files are dropped into the Input folder of the running workflow, Recognition Server immediately starts importing (moving) them to the temporary folder located on the Server Manager computer. If you are adding a large pile of images at once, it is recommended that you set the Input folder and the Server Manager temporary folder on the same logical drive. That will significantly reduce the import times and the amount of disk operations.

The location of the Server Manager temporary folder can be changed in the Recognition Server Properties dialog box.

The default path to the Server Manager temporary folder is <Installation folder>\Bin\RecognitionServer2Temp. The current folder location can be viewed and changed in the Recognition Server Properties dialog box.

The path to the Processing Station temporary folder is <Installation folder>\Bin\ProcessingStation2Temp. ABBYY Recognition Server does not allow changing the location of this folder (however, this is usually not necessary, because the Processing Station gets only a few image files at a time, which doesn’t consume a lot of disk space).

It may happen that ABBYY Recognition Server cannot process some of the files dropped into an Input folder. For example, this may happen if a file format is not supported by the program or by the current license, or if a file is protected with a password. As the program is designed for automated document processing, such exceptional situations must not crush the system or block the processing of other files in the queue.

That is why you should define a special folder in which Recognition Server will put files it cannot process. Each rejected file is accompanied by a special XML result file which contains a description of the issue.

Exceptions folder also collects:

• images that were rejected by the server in accordance with the automatic quality control settings,

• images that correspond to jobs deleted by the administrator in the Remote Administration Console,

• images rejected by the user on a Verification Station.

Yes, Recognition Server supports this scenario. Do the following:

• In the Document Separation Options dialog box, select “Merge files in each subfolder into one file.”

   

• In the Output Format Settings dialog box, set the fie naming rule <Folder>.<Ext>

   

Publication of documents in a SharePoint Server library is configured in the Output Format Settings dialog of the Remote Administration Console. In order to be able to set up the export options, the user running the Remote Administration Console must have at least Read permissions for the required SharePoint site.

Output documents are published in the SharePoint library by the Server Manager service. To be able to publish files to the library, the Server Manager and the Processing Station services must be started under a user account which has at least Contributor permissions for the selected library.

XML tickets allow you to process the images with parameters that differ from the settings of the workflow. For example, you can use an XML ticket to change the recognition language or output format for a particular document.

The XML ticket must be placed into the Input folder prior to the images specified in the ticket.

Below is an example of an XML ticket that instructs Recognition Server to convert two files, SampleImage1.jpg and SampleImage2.jpg, to a single PDF file and publish it to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ABBYY Recognition Server 2.0\Default Workflow\Output Folder:

<XmlTicket>
<InputFile Name = "SampleImage1.jpg"/>
<InputFile Name = "SampleImage2.jpg"/>
<ExportParams DocumentSeparationMethod="MergeIntoSingleFile">
<ExportFormat OutputFileFormat="PDF" OutputFlowType="SharedFolder">
<OutputLocation>C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ABBYY Recognition Server 2.0\Default Workflow\Output Folder</OutputLocation>
</ExportFormat>
</ExportParams>
</XmlTicket>

To test the operation of the above XML ticket:

• Copy the above ticket in a text file.
• Save the file with an *.xml extension.
• Copy the XML file in the Input folder first.
• Take two JPEG images named SampleImage1.jpg and SampleImage2.jpg and drop them in the Input folder after you have placed the XML ticket there.
• Open the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ABBYY Recognition Server 2.0\Default Workflow\Output Folder and find the resulting 2-page PDF file SampleImage1.pdf there.

If you are installing a new minor release of Recognition Server in the same folder in which the previous release was installed (by default, the installation folder is %programfiles%/ABBYY Recognition Server X.X), the configuration of the previous release will be imported automatically.

If you are installing a major new version (e.g. if you are upgrading Recognition Server 1.0 to Recognition Server 2.0), you can import the configuration from the previous version.

To import the configuration:

1. In the Recognition Server Properties dialog box, click the Import Settings button.

2. In the Open dialog box, specify the path to the Configuration.xml file, which is located in the ABBYY Recognition Server installation folder.

The Configuration.xml is not removed when you uninstall ABBYY Recognition Server. Therefore, you can import the configuration of the previous version into the new version of ABBYY Recognition Server even after you have uninstalled the previous version.

You can easily move Recognition Server settings or individual workflows from one Recognition Server to another by exporting them to an XML file.

To export and to import Recognition Server settings, use the Export Settings… and Import Settings… buttons in the Recognition Server Properties dialog box of the Remote Administration Console.

To export and import one or several workflows, use the Save Settings and Load Settings items on the shortcut menu of the Workflows node in the Remote Administration Console.

The number of processes is the number of OCR and document conversion processes that run in parallel on the Processing Station.

Usually each process gets from the queue one file at a time. For example, if a Processing Station runs 3 processes, it will process 3 files from the queue in parallel. The processes on the Station are completely independent of one another: if one process has finished recognizing the file, it returns the result to the Server Manger and immediately gets the next file from the queue, while the other processes may be still processing other files at this time.

By default, the number of processes on each Processing Station is set to N+1, where N is the number of CPU cores on the station. This value is optimal for processing A4 pages that contain mostly text.

You may find if useful to change the default value in the following cases:

• When processing many very small images, significant time is spent on copying image files from the Server Manager to the Processing Stations and back. During this time, the CPUs of the station are idle. It makes sense to increase the number of processes on the station to provide better loading of the CPUs.

• When processing very large files, each of them may require a lot of RAM on the Processing Station. If the jobs are fail with "Not enough memory" error message, try reducing the number of processes on the station. Then fewer files will be processed concurrently and less memory will be occupied.

• If you use a HyperThreading CPU, it is recommended to set the value of this parameter to 2N+1, where N is the number of physical CPU cores.

Recognition Server allows you to have several activated licenses in the Remote Administration Console and switch from one license to another manually when needed. The license currently used by Recognition Server is marked as “Current.”

If the current license expires, Recognition Server will automatically switch to the next available license in the list. You can change the order of licenses in the list by using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons.

See the ABBYY Recognition Server Help file for instructions on how to add, activate, and switch licenses.

The InstallShield Wizard lets you choose a disk drive and an installation folder for ABBYY Recognition Server during the installation process.

You can install ABBYY Recognition Server on any hard disk drive that has sufficient free space (see the System Requirements section of the Administrator’s Guide).