ABBYY Announces Availability in North America of FineReader 6.0 Professional, a New Version of the Award-Winning OCR Software

Beta testers tout improved word accuracy, format retention, and robust capabilities

ABBYY, the technology leader in document recognition and linguistic technologies, today announced the availability in North America of ABBYY FineReader® 6.0 Professional. The new software delivers significant improvements in word accuracy and format retention, new ease-of-use features, added saving options, plus PDF conversion. As a result, FineReader 6.0 Professional is the most advanced OCR software, empowering users to easily convert paper-based documents and scanned images into editable text with superior accuracy. 

“Our engineers have developed new algorithms to improve OCR accuracy, plus we’ve added extensive user tools,” said Dean Tang, president and CEO of ABBYY USA.  “Our internal tests show that the new version of FineReader is more accurate than any other OCR solution.”

The FineReader OCR engine accurately recognizes and retains the whole document, including pictures, page layout, tables and text – even text color, inverted type, and vertical text. The new version expands these capabilities, adding significant features that improve accuracy and format retention. 

Beta Users Test Drive New Version

A diverse group of participants took part in ABBYY’s beta program – from home users to large businesses.  Their feedback was overwhelmingly positive:

“The new version of FineReader is remarkable. I have been testing it for a publishing house specializing in out-of-print books, and the recognition results are very impressive – even when the original is 100 years old with poor quality print, smudges and broken characters,” said Jim Porzak, president of InfoIS, technology consultant for Polyglot, Inc.  “Previously we used another OCR product, but FineReader does a better job of filtering noise on the page, giving us more accurate results. Plus, it supports more languages, enabling us to convert foreign text.”

Norman Metzger, a home-based user in Washington, D.C., previously used FineReader 5.0 Pro to convert newsletters for a historical preservation group.  As a beta tester for ABBYY, Metzger said, “I can really see the improvements – version 6.0 is cleaner and more accurate.  When converting printed newsletters to Microsoft Word, FineReader does an excellent job of retaining the format, especially with font spacing, line length, and wrap-around text.”

Improved Word Accuracy

FineReader 6.0 Professional includes ABBYY’s newly developed Intelligent Background Filtering technology.  This innovative system uses new algorithms to filter background noise and texture, reducing the number of word errors on low-contrast, color and degraded documents – up to 35%.

The new technology employs a dynamic threshold to automatically adjust text contrast on a line-by-line basis and achieve the highest quality of recognition.  In addition, the texture filtering system more effectively detects and removes background noise and texture that could interfere with word recognition. Intelligent Background Filtering is particularly helpful for converting newsprint, magazine pages, faxes, copies and text printed on color or textured backgrounds. 

Improved Format Retention

When converting documents, FineReader does a superior job of retaining the original format. The challenge often comes when exporting the results to text-based applications.  That’s why ABBYY has added new technology to better reproduce the format within Microsoft Word and Excel. These new capabilities include:

• Improved saving of pictures with wrapped text – FineReader now does a better job of preserving the original document layout in Microsoft Word – especially non-rectangular pictures, multi-column pictures and wrap-around text. 
• Better retention of letter spacing and line length – The new version performs a more sophisticated analysis of font parameters, such as letter width, in order to retain more exact letter spacing and line length when exporting to Microsoft Word.  
• Retention of bulleted and numbered lists – FineReader will now preserve bulleted and number lists when results are exported to Microsoft Word.
• Enhanced table recognition – The new version recognizes and retains the text alignment within table cells in Microsoft Excel. And like the previous version, FineReader 6.0 retains text alignment within table cells in MS Word.  Plus it preserves pictures, vertical text and inverted type, whether in table cells or anywhere else in a Word document.

New Input Format & Saving Options

FineReader enables users to input most popular image files, including BMP, JPEG, TIFF and others.  The OCR results can then be saved in a wide variety of formats, from RTF, DOC and XLS to HTML and PDF.  Version 6.0 now expands these options to include: 

• PDF conversion – The new version of FineReader is now able to recognize and convert PDF files into editable text, greatly expanding the user’s ability to revise and reuse information.  Results can then be saved in PDF or any supported saving format.  
• Enhanced PDF output  – A powerful, yet low-cost tool for converting paper to PDF, FineReader now features a new mode of saving:  image only. This gives users 6 saving options – more PDF formats than any other OCR software.  Also, the program includes foreign language fonts that enable users to easily save multilingual documents in PDF, eliminating the need to install additional fonts.  
• Adjusting image compression & resolution – This new and unique FineReader feature enables users to control the quality and file size of graphic elements when saving in HTML or PDF formats by adjusting photo compression.  Plus, users saving in RTF, DOC, HTML or PDF formats can select the image resolution from 72 to 600 dpi, eliminating the need to rescan images.

Ease-of-use Enhancements & Robust Features

FineReader provides an extensive set of user-friendly tools for every step of the OCR process. The software enables users to convert paper documents with a single click of the Scan&Read button. Plus, the Scan&Read Assistant guides the OCR process, prompting users to select preferred settings, which can then be saved to automate repetitive projects.  FineReader also features background recognition, which enables users to work in another program while running FineReader in the background. And now, the 6.0 version offers many new features that make OCR quicker, easier and more powerful than ever:

• New full-page WYSIWYG editor – Displays the full document layout as it appears in the source image, improving the ease-of-use and reducing edit time.  
• Printing directly from FineReader – Enables users to print source images and recognized documents directly from FineReader. This is a new valuable tool for anyone who needs a printed document that maintains the original layout. Otherwise, some layout elements may be lost when exporting to text-based applications with more limited formatting capabilities. 
• Recognition of multilingual documents – Supports 177 languages – more than any other OCR software – and recognizes documents with multiple languages. Plus, FineReader enables users to create new languages.
• Integration with Windows Explorer – Enables users to open documents or batches in Windows Explorer by right clicking on the image file and opening it directly in FineReader.  And like the previous version, FineReader 6.0 can be launched directly from Microsoft Word by clicking a toolbar icon.  Likewise, users can send OCR results directly to Word, Excel and Outlook.  

System Requirements

FineReader 6.0 Professional requires a minimum Intel® Pentium® 200 MHz processor; Microsoft® Windows® 95, 98, ME, XP, 2000, or NT® Workstation 4.0 (with Service Pack 6 or greater); 64 М B (Windows XP/2000), 32 М B (Windows ME/98/NT 4.0), 16 М B (Windows 95) of RAM, 90 MB of free hard-disk space for minimal program installation, and 70 MB of free hard-disk space for the program operation. FineReader also requires Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher (Internet Explorer 5.5 is included on the CD). Optional: FineReader supports TWAIN-compliant scanners and fax-modems.

Pricing and Availability

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Professional is now available and can be purchased by visiting ABBYY’s online store: http://www.abbyyusa.com/ or by calling ABBYY’s toll-free number:  (877) 328-2229. In addition, the software is available through major retailers and online stores. 

The company also offers a 15-day “Try&Buy” version, which can be downloaded for free from ABBYY’s web site, http://www.abbyyusa.com/. 

Today ABBYY also announced the availability of FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition.