ABBYY Unveils New OCR Software For Increasing Productivity In Corporate Environments

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition Delivers New Levels of OCR Accuracy and Functionality For Networked Offices 

ABBYY today announced ABBYY FineReader ® 6.0 Corporate Edition, new optical character recognition (OCR) software designed specifically for modern office environments. Building upon the functionality of the next generation FineReader applications, FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition offers corporate level features that include network capabilities and business tools such as batch index and search, barcode recognition, and image splitting capabilities. With all of the functionality to create OCR workflow stations, the product is well-suited for businesses processing large amounts of documents or companies that want to put OCR on every employee’s desk.

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition offers all of the features of FineReader 6.0 Professional, plus special capabilities for businesses -- a combination that makes it the most advanced and highly accurate solution for distributed document processing. “An increasing number of businesses are finding OCR the most efficient, productive means of transforming crucial documents into editable files that are easy to edit, send, store and back up,” explained Jupp Stoepetie, CEO of ABBYY Europe GmbH. “With this in mind, we combined our award-winning OCR application with powerful networking tools to support a distributed work environment. ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition is the solution for managing data -- from contracts and files, to and magazine articles – in the most productive way.”

Flexible License Management and Distributed Document Processing

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition supports concurrent license management, allowing customers to install it on an unlimited number of workstations in their local network and efficiently manage the number of purchased licenses. Businesses can also host a number of workstations sharing of OCR work, allowing multiple users on the network to process, recognize, and proofread the same batch of documents simultaneously – essentially creating an OCR production line. To support the needs of a busy office environment, FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition takes advantage of additional processors on multiprocessor PCs. The multiprocessing support increases the recognition speed in direct proportion to the number of processors installed. In addition, businesses working with FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition also benefit from the ability to share custom languages and dictionaries across the network simultaneously.

Special Tools for Businesses

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition includes supplemental OCR tools just for businesses. Features include:

• Indexing and full text search. FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition’s morphology search dialogue supports indexing and full text search functions in open batch of documents.
• Image Splitting Tools. FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition includes an advanced imaging tool that allows users to split the images into multiple parts, in manual or automatic mode. With FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition, a user can scan both pages of an open book at once or many smaller images in one pass, then split the images – creating a separate file for each page of the book or each image. This saves time by cutting down the number of scans required.
• Barcode recognition and export. FineReader also includes special functionality to handle barcode recognition.
• ODMA export. FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition also supports export via ODMA (Open Document Management Access), the international standard for transferring data into corporate information systems. As a result, FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition easily interacts with leading document management systems.

FormFiller: Form Filling Application

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition also includes FormFiller, an application for completing and printing out forms. Extremely useful for bank transfers, tax forms, customs documents etc., this application transforms a scanned form into a digital form which can be defined and then saved as a template. Users simply open the image, define fields, enter the required information and print it out. This eliminates the need to fill out forms by hand or with a manual typewriter.

Based on ABBYY FineReader 6.0 OCR Functionality

FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition offers all of the functionality of ABBYY’s next generation OCR technology including significant improvements in word accuracy and format retention, new ease-of-use features, added saving options. Advanced OCR functionality includes:

• Superior Accuracy. New "Intelligent Background Filtering" technologies filter out background “noise” such as colour and texture, increasing accuracy for difficult to read documents such as newsprint, colour documents, faxes, and copies.
• Retention of Complicated Layouts. Recognizes odd-shaped images, multicolumn pictures, and wrap-around text. Ideal for recognizing magazine articles and marketing brochures.
• Retention of Cell Text Alignment and Bullet Points. Maintains cell text alignment in and bullet points when exporting to MS Excel and MS Word.
• PDF Input. Creates editable files from the PDF files which users download from the Internet or receive via e-mail.
• Output to PDF, HTML and multiple file formats. Opens, reads, edits, or saves text in popular word processing programs, PDF, or HTML files. Creates "image-only" PDF files.
• Multilingual document recognition. Recognizes 122 languages (or 177 in the Cyrillic Plus version).
• Flexible Image Storage. Changes the compression ratio or resolution of pictures when exporting to PDF, HTML, DOC and RTF file formats. Saves images in different sizes and resolutions.

Product Specifications

FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition requires an Intel ® Pentium ® 200 MHz processor or higher; 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 included on the CD). Optional: FineReader supports 100% TWAIN-compliant scanners and digital cameras . Please see the corporate Web site for additional specifications and requirements.

Availability and Pricing Information

ABBYY FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition is priced at 299 USD The software is expected to be available in April 2002, and can be purchased by visiting ABBYY’s online store: Online Stores.

In addition, the software will be available through major retailers, online stores, and ABBYY’s toll-free phone number: (877) 328-2229. The company also offers a 15-day “Trial” version, which is a free download on the ABBYY web site, http://www.abbyy.com/.

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