Image acquisition and processing with ABBYY FineReader
The recognition quality largely depends on the quality of the original image. In this chapter, you will learn how to properly scan a document, how to open and recognize images already on your computer (for a list of formats supported by the system, see the Supported Graphic Formats section), how you can process an image and remove some of its defects (for example, garbage generated during scanning), etc.
Scanning
ABBYY FineReader works with scanners via the TWAIN interface. This is a single international standard introduced in 1992 to unify the interaction of devices for inputting images into a computer (for example, a scanner) with external applications. In this case, there are two options for interaction between the program and scanners via the TWAIN driver:
- via the ABBYY FineReader interface: in this case, the ABBYY FineReader Scanner Settings dialog is used to configure scanning options;
- Through the TWAIN Scanner Driver Interface: Use the TWAIN Scanner Driver dialog to configure scan options.
Benefits of each mode
In the "Use TWAIN Scanner Driver Interface" mode, as a rule, the preview function is available, which allows you to precisely set the size of the scanned area, adjust the brightness, and immediately control the results of these changes. The TWAIN driver dialog looks different for each scanner; in most cases, all labels are in English. The view of this window and the meaning of the options are described in the documentation supplied with the scanner. In the Use ABBYY FineReader interface mode, options are available such as the ability to scan in a loop on scanners without an ADF, save scan options to a separate file of a set of options (* .fbt), and the ability to use these options in other packages.
You can easily switch between these modes: on the Scan / Open tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu), set the switch to one of the following positions: Use TWAIN scanner driver interface or Use ABBYY FineReader interface.
Remarks.
1. For some scanners, the Use ABBYY FineReader interface option may be disabled (unavailable) by default.
2. To display the Scanner Settings dialog in the Use ABBYY FineReader interface mode, on the Scan / Open tab (Tools> Options menu) check the Prompt for options before scanning option.
Important! To properly connect the scanner, refer to the documentation that came with the scanner. When installing, be sure to install the prerequisite software that came with your scanner (TWAIN driver and / or scanning software).
To start a scan:
Click the 1-Scan button or select the Scan Picture item from the File menu. After a while, the Image window with a "photo" of the scanned page will appear in the ABBYY FineReader main window.
If you want to scan multiple pages, then on the Scan / Open tab (Tools> Options) check the Scan multiple pages box.
Comment. The Options dialog can also be opened by selecting the Options item in the menu of the 1 – Scan button.
If scanning did not start immediately, one of the following dialogs is displayed:
- built-in TWAIN-dialog of the scanner. Set the scanning parameters and click the Scan button (Final, etc., the name of the buttons depends on the specific scanner model);
- Scanner Settings dialog. Set the scan parameters and click the Scan button (Final, etc., the name of the buttons depends on the specific scanner model).
Advice:
If you want to start recognition of scanned pages immediately:
Click on the arrow to the right of the Scan & Read button and select the Scan and Recognize item in the local menu of the button.
ABBYY FineReader scans and recognizes images. An Image window with a "photo" of the scanned page and a Text window with the recognition result will appear in the main program window. You can transfer the recognized text to external applications or save it in one of the supported formats.
Setting scan options
The recognition quality largely depends on how good the scanned image is. Image quality is regulated by setting the basic scanning parameters: image type, resolution and brightness.
The main scanning parameters are:
- Image type - gray (256 gradations), black and white or color. Scanning in gray is the optimal mode for the recognition system. In the case of scanning in gray mode, the brightness is automatically matched. The black and white type of image provides a faster scan speed, but some information about the letters is lost, which can lead to poor recognition of documents of average to poor print quality. If you want the colored elements contained in the document (pictures, colored letters and colored background) to be transferred to an electronic document with color preservation, you must select the color image type. In other cases, use a gray image type.
- Resolution - use 300 dpi for regular texts (font size 10 points or more) and 400-600 dpi for small print (9 points or less).
- Brightness - In most cases, a medium brightness value of 50% is suitable. Some documents may need additional brightness adjustments to scan some documents in black and white.
Comment. Scanning at 400-600 dpi instead of 300 dpi, or scanning in grayscale or color, can take significantly longer than scanning in black and white. On some scanners, scanning at 600 dpi takes 4 times longer than scanning at 300 dpi.
To set scan options:
- When scanning via TWAIN using the ABBYY FineReader interface: on the Scan / Open tab in the Options dialog box (Tools / Options menu), click the Scanner Settings button and set the required options in the Scanner Settings dialog box that opens.
- When scanning via TWAIN using the TWAIN-scanner driver interface, the scanner dialog box is used to set the scanning parameters, which opens automatically when you click the 1-Scan button. The options for setting scan parameters may have different names depending on the scanner model. For example, brightness can be called brightness, threshold, it can be represented by a "sun" or a black-and-white circle. The meaning of the options is described in the documentation supplied with the scanner.
Brightness Matching Tips
The scanned image must be legible (view the image in the Close-up window).
The original manual includes an illustration at this location.- an example of a good (recognizable) image.
If in the resulting image you find many defects (tears or gluing of letters), then refer to the table below. Possible remedies for these defects are indicated in it.
Scanning multi-page documents
For the convenience of scanning a large number of pages, ABBYY FineReader provides a special scanning mode: Scan multiple pages. It allows you to scan multiple pages in a row. To enable this mode, select the Scan multiple pages option on the Scan / Open tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu). Wherein:
- when scanning via TWAIN using ABBYY FineReader, the scanner automatically starts scanning the next page when it finishes scanning a page;
- when scanning via TWAIN using the TWAIN interface — Twain scanner driver — the scanner dialog does not close after the first page has been scanned. You can put the next page in the scanner and scan it, etc.
You can scan large numbers of pages in two ways: with and without an ADF.
When using the automatic document feeder (ADF)
- ABBYY FineReader interface. In the Scanner Settings dialog box, check the Load pages from ADF option and start scanning by clicking the 1-Scan button.
- TWAIN Scanner Driver Interface. In the TWAIN-dialog of the scanner, check the option to use the ADF (this option may have different names depending on the scanner model; see the documentation supplied with the scanner) and start scanning by pressing the 1-Scan button.
Comment. To open the Scanner Settings dialog, click the Scanner Settings button on the Scan / Open tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu).
Without using the automatic document feeder (ADF)
1. ABBYY FineReader interface
For the convenience of scanning multiple pages in a row on a flatbed scanner without an ADF:
- Set the amount of pause (the time from the end of scanning one page to the beginning of scanning the next). To do this, in the Scanner Settings dialog box, check the Pause between pages option and set the pause value in seconds.
In this case, after scanning the first page, the scanner pauses for the specified pause, during which you insert the next page into the scanner. Then scanning continues automatically. - Select Stop Between Pages mode. To do this, in the Scanner Settings dialog box, check the Stop between pages option.
In this case, every time the page is scanned, a dialog will appear asking whether to continue scanning. Click Yes to scan the next page and No to complete the scan.
To finish scanning, on the File menu, select Stop Scanning
Comment. To open the Scanner Settings dialog, click the Scanner Settings button on the Scan / Open tab of the Options dialog (Tools / Options menu).
2. TWAIN Scanner Driver Interface
- Make sure that Scan Multiple Pages is checked on the Scan / Open tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu). To start scanning, in the opened TWAIN-dialog of the scanner, click the Scan button (Final, etc., the name of the button depends on the specific implementation of the TWAIN-scanner driver).
- To continue scanning, click on the Scan button in the Twain-dialog of the scanner.
To complete scanning, in the Twain-dialog of the scanner, click the Close button (or something similar to it).
Advice: To give you control over the scan results, in the View group of the Advanced Options dialog, check the Open images as they scan option. (To open the Advanced Options dialog, click the Advanced Options button on the General tab of the Options dialog). In this case, when the page has finished scanning, the scanned image will appear in the Image window. If the image was not scanned correctly, stop scanning (from the File menu, select Stop Scanning) and scan the image again.
Solving Scanning Problems: Scanner Does Not Support Twain Driver
If your scanner does not support Twain, then you can work with the program as follows:
1. Create a new package in the program, open a package, or continue working in an already open package.
2. Set the recognition parameters (recognition language, page type, print type).
3. From the Process menu, select Start Background Recognition.
4. Without closing the programs, scan the document you want to recognize with any graphics program and save it to the folder where you saved the created package, with the name 0001.TIF. ABBYY FineReader will automatically pick up the image and recognize it.
Comment. If there were already pages in the package when adding pages, then the names of the added files (as well as the numbers of the corresponding new pages in the package) will start not with one (1), but with the page number following the last page of the package, i.e. if there were 10 pages in the package, then the following names will be assigned to the new files: 0011.tif, 0012.tif, etc.
5. Scan the second document and save it as 0002.TIF and so on.
6. To stop recognition, on the Process menu, select Stop Background Recognition.
Thus, all scanned pages will be recognized by the program.
Opening Image and PDF Files
If you do not have a scanner, you can open and recognize ready-made graphic files (for a list of openable formats, see the Supported Graphic Formats section).
To open an image:
In the Open Image dialog, select one or more images. The selected images will appear in the Batch window, and the last of the selected images will open in the Image window and in the ABBYY FineReader Close-up window, with a copy of the image placed in the batch folder. For more information about the presentation of pages in a package and about the structure of the package, see "General information on working with the package".
Advice: If you want open images to be immediately recognized, use the Open and Recognize mode. For this:
1. From the Process menu, select Open and Recognize. Keyboard Command: CTRL + SHIFT + D.
2. In the Open dialog box that opens, select images to be recognized.
Features of opening PDF-files
The creator of a PDF file can restrict access to his file, for example, protect it with a password, prohibit opening the file or extracting text and graphics from it. When opening such files, ABBYY FineReader will ask for a password to protect the copyright of the creator of the file.
Adding Dual Page Images to a Batch
When scanning books, it is more convenient to scan two pages (book spread) at once. At the same time, to improve the quality of recognition, such images should be divided into two so that a separate page of the package corresponds to each page (analysis and recognition is carried out for each page separately, the skew of the lines is corrected).
To do this, before scanning or adding double pages to the batch:
On the Scan / Open tab (Tools> Options menu) check the Divide book spread option.
In this case, the book spread (double pages) will be represented by two pages of the package. For more information on the package, see "General information on working with the package".
Comment. If the book spread (double pages) was split into two pages unsuccessfully, uncheck the Split book spread option, re-scan or add the picture with the book spread to the batch and try to split it manually in the Split Image dialog (Image> Split Image menu).
Add business card images to a batch
When entering information from business cards into a computer, it is more convenient to scan them not one by one, but several at a time. At the same time, the recognition quality will be higher (in particular, due to the correction of distortions) in the case when each business card is included in the package as a separate page. For this purpose, the system provides means for automatic and manual splitting of images containing business cards arranged in a certain order.
Comment. The business cards need to be arranged in a specific way on the scanner glass. For more information, see the "Working with business cards" section in Tutorials by Example.
To split an image:
1. In the Batch window, select the desired image.
2. From the Image menu, select Split Image.
3. In the Split Image dialog box that opens, click the Split into Business Cards button.
Remarks.
1. The page being cut is removed from the batch; in its place, new pages are added corresponding to the cut parts. For more information on the package, see "General information on working with the package".
2. If the image was cut into business cards incorrectly, then try to cut it manually using the Add Vertical Divider / Add Horizontal Divider buttons.
3. To remove all separators, click the Remove All Separators button.
4. To move the separator, go to the Select Object mode (press the button) and move the separator.
5. To remove the separator, go to the Select Object mode (press the button) and move the separator outside the image.
Capturing texts with a camera
Taking photos of documents requires some training of the photographer, and also imposes restrictions on the characteristics of the camera and the shooting mode. This article will help you choose a camera operation mode and get a picture of a document suitable for OCR. The technical parameters of your camera and instructions on how to operate it are given in the description of the camera and other documentation supplied with the camera.
Before shooting, make sure:
1. The page completely fits into the frame, and that it occupies it entirely (no unnecessary margins remain).
2. The light is fairly even, without shadows on the photographed text.
3. The photographed document is located perpendicular to the optical axis of the lens, i.e. the camera should be positioned opposite the center of the text. Irregularities in the paper (at the spine of a book, for example) should be smoothed out as much as possible.
Below are the camera requirements and guidelines for choosing a shooting mode.
Camera requirements
Minimum Requirements
- Matrix size 2 million pixels.
- Variable focusing distance. It is not recommended to use cameras with fixed focus (focused on hyperfocal distance), such cameras are usually found in cell phones and PDAs.
- Matrix size 5 million pixels.
- The ability to turn off the flash.
- Manual aperture setting - i.e. the presence of aperture priority mode or manual mode.
- Manual focus mode.
- A lens with optical image stabilization, if not available, it is recommended to use a tripod.
- Optical zoom.
How to photograph texts
Lighting
Provide good lighting whenever possible, daylight is best. If backlighting is used, it is better to use the backlighting with two lamps from different sides to avoid the formation of shadows.
How to position the camera
We recommend using a tripod to shoot documents. It is best to shoot at maximum optical magnification, while the camera should be as far away from the text as possible. The lens should be positioned parallel to the shooting surface and in the center of the photographed image.
The camera should be removed from the page so that at maximum magnification, the page completely fits into the frame. Usually this distance is about 50-60 cm.
Flash
If lighting permits, it is best to turn off the flash as it creates overexposed areas and harsh shadows. However, if there is not enough external light, then you can use the flash if shooting is taken from a sufficient distance (~ 50 centimeters). Even when using a flash, it is still advisable to illuminate the document.
Selecting a shooting mode
Aperture: In low light conditions, it is recommended to choose small aperture values (~ 2.3 - 4.5), i.e. open the diaphragm as much as possible. When shooting in bright daylight, it is better to increase the aperture value to get a sharper picture.
Sensor sensitivity: In poor lighting conditions, it is recommended to select a higher sensor sensitivity (higher ISO value).
Focusing: In poor lighting conditions, auto focus may not work well (the unit cannot focus), in which case it is recommended to use manual focus.
White balance: If possible, match the white balance to the color of the paper. If your camera does not allow you to freely set the white balance, select the mode that best suits your shooting conditions.
In low light conditions, the automatic mode uses slow shutter speeds, which negatively affects the sharpness of the resulting image. Therefore, it is additionally recommended:
- Use Image Stabilizer.
- Use self-timer. This will prevent the camera from shaking when you press the shutter button. Even with a tripod, these problems can occur.
What to do, if...
The picture is too dark and lack of contrast.
Try to improve your lighting. If this is not possible, set a smaller aperture value.
The picture is out of focus.
Autofocus may be performing poorly due to the lack of light. Try to improve your lighting. If that doesn't help, use manual focus.
If only part of the image is out of focus, try setting a larger aperture value. Shoot from a greater distance with maximum optical zoom. Focus on a point between the center and edge of the image.
The flash creates an overexposed area in the center of the frame.
Disable flash. If you cannot use other light sources, shoot from a greater distance.
Checking and correcting the resulting image
1. Clear debris
The recognized image can be heavily "cluttered", i. E. contain a lot of extra dots resulting from scanning documents of average or low quality. Dots close to the outlines of letters can adversely affect the quality of the recognized text. To reduce the number of unnecessary points, you can use the Clear debris option. To do this: Select the Clean image from debris item in the Image> Process images menu.
If you want to clear a separate block of "garbage", then: Select the Clear block from garbage item in the Image> Process images menu.
Attention! If the original text was very light, or the original text used a very thin font, then using the Clear image from debris function may lead to the disappearance of dots, commas or thin letter elements, which degrades the recognition quality.
2. Change the image resolution
Image resolution is a parameter that determines how many dots make up an image per unit of length. Resolution is usually measured in dpi - the number of dots per inch. For high-quality text recognition using ABBYY FineReader, the image resolution must be the same vertically and horizontally. The recommended resolution is optimal from the point of view of recognition - 300 dpi.
Too high or too low a resolution can lead to a deterioration in the quality of recognition. Some image formats have no resolution (for example, * .bmp files). Images can also have a non-standard resolution (for example, 204 * 96 dpi), which can also affect the quality of recognition.
ABBYY FineReader checks the resolution of each image and, if it detects a "suspicious" image, automatically corrects its resolution without changing the physical dimensions of the image (its length and width). Such an image is marked with an icon in the Batch window. When you hover the mouse over such an image, a tooltip appears.
If the image recognition quality is poor, adjusting the image resolution may improve the recognition results. To correct the image resolution:
- In the Batch window, select the image with the icon. If the tooltip text indicates that the image has an incorrect resolution, select the Correct Resolution ... command from the Image menu.
- In the dialog that opens, specify the type of image (scanned image, faxed image, or screenshot). You can also specify the exact resolution in the Other Resolution field.
- If you need to correct the resolution only for selected images, select the Selected images option in the Correct resolution group. If all images in the batch are of the wrong resolution, check the All images in batch option. Since in this case the resolution of all images in the batch will be reduced to the same value, this operation is recommended only if all images in the batch are obtained from one source.
3. Eliminate distorted lines
When scanning books, lines of text may be distorted in the part of the image where the page adjoins the binding. In images captured with the camera, lines of text may also be distorted at the edges of the image. To eliminate string corruption:
l Click the button or select Image> Process Image> Correct Line Distortion.
Comment. This operation can take a long time to complete.
4. Invert image
Some scanners invert images when they scan (black to white and white to black). To get the standard representation of the document (black on white): On the Image> Process Images menu, select Invert.
Comment. If you scan or open inverted images, then before adding such images to the batch, check the Invert image item in the Scan / Open group in the Advanced Options dialog. To open the Advanced Options dialog, click the Advanced Options button on the General tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu).
5. Rotate or flip the image
For recognition, the image should have a standard orientation: the text should be read from top to bottom, and the lines should be horizontal. By default, the program detects and corrects the image orientation automatically upon recognition. If the orientation of the image was determined by mistake, uncheck the Detect page orientation (when recognizing) box on the Scan / Open tab and rotate the image manually.
To rotate an image:
- 90 degrees to the right - Press the button, or select Rotate Clockwise from the Image> Rotate / Flip Image menu.
- 90 degrees to the left - Press the button, or choose Rotate Counterclockwise from the Image> Rotate / Flip Image menu.
- 180 Degrees — choose Rotate 180 Degrees from the Image> Rotate / Flip Image menu.
6. Erase part of the image
If you want to exclude some part of the text from recognition or there are large areas of debris in the image, then you can erase such areas. To do this: Select the tool (on the panel in the Image window) and, by clicking on the left mouse button, select the area of the image that you want to delete. Release the button, the selected part of the image will be deleted.
7. Crop the image
Sometimes, blackened margins appear at the edges of the image as a result of scanning. In this case, before recognition, you can crop the image to remove unnecessary portions. Using the image cropping tool, you can also get an image of a standard size (corresponding to one of the standard formats, for example, A4, A5).
- 1. On the Image panel (in the Image window) select a tool (you can also use the Crop Image command in the Image menu);
- 2. The image will be opened in the Crop Image window, the outline of the image will be highlighted with a black line. To:
- To choose the most convenient image viewing mode, use the drop-down list located in the lower left corner of the image window;
- To crop unnecessary edges of the image, drag with the mouse the black line framing the image, or the markers located in the corners of the image outline. The part of the image to be cut off is highlighted in gray. Click on the Trim button;
- Resize image to standard size, select the required format from the Resize to drop-down list;
- Do not crop the open image and go to the next image, click the Skip button;
- Always work only with the selected image (do not go to the next image of the batch after finishing work with the current image), uncheck the Go to next page option.
Comment.
- 1. It is recommended to crop the image before the blocks are selected on the image and the image is recognized.
- 2. The color of the frame in the Crop image window can be changed on the View tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu). In the Objects list, select the Image cropping unit item, then click the Color button and in the opened dialog select the required frame color.
8. Zoom in / out the image
- In the Image panel (in the Image window) select the / tool and click on the image. The image will be enlarged / reduced by half.
- Right-click on the image and select the Scale item and the scale you need in the local menu.
9.Get image information
You can get the following information about an open image: width and height of the image in points; vertical and horizontal resolution in dots per inch (dpi); image type. To view information about an image: Right-click on the image and select Properties in the local menu. In the dialog that opens, select the Image tab.
10. Print image
You can print one image open in the Image window, multiple images selected in the Batch window, or all images. To do this: In the File menu, select Print> Image and in the Print dialog that opens, set the printing parameters (printer, number of printed pages, number of copies, etc.)
11. Undo the last action
To undo the last action on the Standard panel, click the Undo button.
Advice: To redo the last undone action on the Standard panel, click Redo.
Page numbering when added to a batch
By default, each scanned page is assigned a number one higher than the last image in the batch.
You can also specify the page number to add manually (for example, you need to keep the original page numbering, or you scan a stack of pages sorted in order). To do this: on the Scan / Open tab (Tools> Options menu) check the Prompt for page number before adding to batch item.
When scanning a stack of double-sided pages sorted in order:
- 1. Check the Prompt for page number before adding to batch check box on the Scan / Open tab (Tools> Options).
- 2. In the Page Number dialog box, specify the number of the page to start scanning and select the One by one option in the Page numbering field. Select the page numbering method: ascending or descending. Ascending or descending depends, for example, on how you put the stack in the ADF - whether the lower or higher numbers are at the top.
Image storage options in batch
Convert color / gray image to black and white
Select this option when scanning through the scanner's TWAIN dialog in gray mode (with auto-brightness adjustment) or when scanning in color, if the scanned documents do not contain color pictures, colored fonts and backgrounds, or if you do not need to transfer color to the output image. In this case, the images saved in the batch will take up less disk space.
Comment. This option is set in the Advanced Options dialog. To open this dialog, click the Additional Options button on the General tab of the Options dialog (Tools> Options menu).
One of the most popular document scanning software is Abbyy Finereader. It offers wide functionality for working with images, DOC files, PDFs, as well as with paper documents of any type. Many decide for study or business. And because of the importance of software, problems in its work are acutely felt. Often there are difficulties with the choice and connection of a scanner, which makes it impossible to process paper materials. But these problems can be solved if the problem is approached comprehensively.
Requirements for PC and technology
First of all, it is important to note that for the software to work properly, your computer and the equipment used must meet a number of requirements or technical characteristics. The minimum is as follows:
- operating system Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10;
- processor with a frequency of 1 GHz or more;
- RAM from 1 GB;
- WIA or TWAIN compliant device.
If you do not follow them, then the program may not work correctly. This means that you will not be able to carry out multi-page scanning, configure the necessary work items and generally launch the software.
Problem solving
To troubleshoot problems, try the steps below.
- Update your drivers. Most often, the problem occurs due to the use of outdated drivers. You can download them from the official website.
- Check if your current user on the system has the required access level.
- Install the latest version of the program.
- Make sure the software sees the scanner. How to choose a scanner in Abbyy Finereader? As a rule, the program itself should detect the device when it starts. If this did not happen, then open the menu, go to the settings, select the "Driver - Printer" item (or Service - Options - Scanning).
- If that doesn't help, then open the task manager and take a look at the available devices. If a yellow exclamation mark is lit in front of the equipment, then the problem may be in the equipment itself. In this case, you need to contact the service center.
You can also contact the technical support service of the company itself through the official website. Here you can ask a question, for example, why duplex scanning is not working. Describe the situation in detail, and you will be provided with comprehensive information.
Changing the interface
There are two options for working with equipment in the program: through the interface of the software itself and through the menu of the TWAIN scanner driver (or WIA driver). The first item is selected by default. But if you need to change the operating mode, then setting up the Abbyy Finereader scanner will help you. To do this, open the "Options" menu item on the "Scan / Open" tab, go to the "Scanner" section and select the required switch position. After that, the operating mode must be changed. You can return it back through the same menu.
The conversation will focus on ABBYY FineReader 12, that is, on its latest version. Without looking too far, we have chosen the most famous product of the ABBYY company, which, to its merits, is excellently Russified. Already at first glance, Fine Reader (FR) gives the impression of a program with good Russian-language support: in this regard, indeed, everything is done at a very decent level, including reference information.
In the beginning there is a retreat. The question of how to translate all or some part of the archive into digital format (and what, in fact, is understood by the word "digital") is always relevant. Buying a scanner hardly solves all the problems. Of course, very often a disc or several with proprietary software is supplied with the scanner documentation. However, already at the stage of sanitation it becomes clear that the quality of the scanning program leaves much to be desired, or the format in which the saving takes place, unfortunately, is not suitable for storage. Why? Most graphic formats do not separate the text from the non-text space of the document, and therefore it is not possible to copy any excerpt from such a file.
It is in such cases that functional text recognition programs come to the rescue, whose capabilities, in particular, include extracting text from an image.
Introducing ABBYY FineReader
Plastic bag ABBYY Finereader 12- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system. Designed both for automatic input of printed documents into a computer, and for converting PDF documents and photos into editable formats (from the program manual)
The abbreviation "OCR" applies to all data recognition applications (not just text). Data can be retrieved from a printed or electronic document. Once upon a time, not very long ago, few people knew about OCR, in one form or another, and the process of translating text into electronic form turned into a sheer routine, right up to manual reprinting of the original text. Today, having a flatbed scanner (only a few people use a manual one at home) and finereader 12- be sure - there will be no difficulties in scanning and recognition.
Beginning with the sixth version, FineReader supports import and export in PDF format, patented by Adobe. Many readers have probably encountered difficulties in translating from this format to any other (doc, etc.), since there are not so many really useful programs in this area (only the PDF Transformer, a subsidiary product of ABBYY, is worthy of attention). The fact is that such programs carry out text recognition only once, as a result of which the "identity" of the result is not at all great (depending on the complexity of the document), plus the formatting of the document is pretty much lost.
This is not the case with FineReader. The ninth version of the program includes a technology called Document OCR. It is based on the principle of integral document recognition: it is analyzed and recognized as a whole, and not page by page. At the same time, all kinds of columns, headers and footers, fonts, styles, footnotes and images remain intact or are replaced by those close to the original.
Installing a package
The demo version of Finereader 12 can be downloaded from the Abbyy.ru website, in the Download section, the full licensed version is distributed on a CD. The purchase methods can be found on the same website in the "Buy" section.
On the ABBYY developers website you can download a demo version of ABBYY FineReader version 12 (or another one that is current for today)
ABBYY FineReader is distributed in several versions: Professional Edition, Corporate Edition, Site License Edition, etc. The difference between the Professional version and the rest is that it is designed to work in a corporate network with the ability to work together on document recognition. Otherwise, the difference is insignificant and depends on the choice of the terms of the license agreement.
It's hard to imagine that FineReader 2.0 existed 12 years ago, which took about 10 MB of disk space. Over time, the package "grew" tenfold and now in the installed form takes up to 300 MB. Whether it is a lot or a little - judge for yourself. The new FR supports 179 recognition languages, among which there are little-known artificial languages (Ido, Interlingua, Ocidental and Esperanto), programming languages, formulas, etc. Let's not forget about support for various formats and scripts. So, if for some reason you want to limit the space occupied by the package, during installation, mark only those components that will be in demand during work.
The choice of components affects the installation time, which, however, should not take long. During the installation process, you will be introduced to the basic features of FR. After activation (via the Internet, via E-mail, using the received code, etc.), the program is ready for fully functional work. In demo mode, you will certainly encounter various restrictions, which, unfortunately, do not allow you to fully use the package.
FineReader interface. Functionality
Access to the program's capabilities is available both through the scripts that appear in the main menu immediately after the installation process, and, in fact, through the main interface.
FineReader startup splash screen The appearance of the program from version to version does not undergo any special changes: the developers see no reason to radically change it. Considerable attention is paid to ergonomics, which is noticeable in all ABBYY products (Lingvo, PDF Transformer, FlexiCapture ...). In other words, Fine Reader 12's interface is well thought out and responsive to all users, including beginners. The principle "Get the result in one click" will appeal to those who are not used to setting up and changing something. On the other hand, more experienced users can fine-tune FineReader through the preferences dialog (Tools -> Options ...). The only caveat: for comfortable work in the application, it is advisable to set the screen resolution to 1280 × 800, so that all the tools are always, as they say, at hand.
After launching the Fine Reader program, a window with buttons for quick access to the program functions will appear. This menu is also available through the Tools -> ABBYY FineReader menu, the "Main Scripts" button in the far right corner of the program, or through the Ctrl + N keyboard shortcut (by analogy with Word, where this combination causes the opening of a new document).
Scan to Microsoft Word: in the ninth version of FineReader there is support for Microsoft Word 2007, which has not yet become popular. In turn, a "corporate" red icon appears on the toolbar in Microsoft Office applications, in the add-ons section after installing FR.
Menu for exporting a recognized FineReader document 
Selecting languages for scanning and recognizing documents In addition to Microsoft Office, FR supports integration with Microsoft Outlook, provides export of recognition results to the same Microsoft Word, Excel, Lotus Word Pro, Corel WordPerect and Adobe Acrobat. These features make it somewhat easier and faster to work with the program, especially if you have to work in it regularly.
PDF or images in Microsoft Word: recognize data from a PDF or other type of graphic file supported by Finereader 12. It should be noted that the technology of extracting text from a PDF file in FR is not just "peeling" the text content (there may be no text layer in PDF) from the graphic one. In fact, the recognition technology is quite difficult: after analyzing the content of the document, the program decides what and how to do with the text: simply extract or recognize, and so on for each text fragment.
Scan to Microsoft Excel: scanning to XLS (Microsoft Excel format) can be justified if the scanned image contains tables.
Scan to PDF: There are many reasons to scan to PDF. One of them is security: this is the only format familiar to FR, in the settings of which you can set a password lock. The password is set not only for opening a document, but also for printing it and other operations. It is possible to choose one of three encryption levels: 40-bit, 128-bit based on the RC4 standard, 128-bit level based on the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) standard.
Convert photo to Microsoft Word: translation of a file from a graphic format (and it can be PDF or a multi-page image) to DOC / DOCX.
Open in Fine Reader: open a graphic file (PDF, BMP, PCX, DCX, JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG) for FineReader recognition.
Working in FineReader
Now - briefly about the features of the program. The whole process is divided into scanning, recognition and saving of results. After you have selected the type of action of the program, specified the file or device for scanning, FineReader performs its task step by step, which, by the way, is quite resource-intensive for the central processor.
If you are the proud owner of a dual-core processor, then working in Fine Reader 12, you can appreciate the power of your computer. The fact is that FR, having detected a dual-core processor, recognizes not one, but two pages of a document at once in parallel. A trifle - but nice.
First, there is scanning, then - recognition and export of a temporary document in the selected format.
PDF document recognition process Scanning. You do not need to make any presets in FineReader (other than selecting a reader) before scanning. That is why scenarios were invented: they are designed to simplify the implementation of the same type of actions.
Recognition. Simplification touched upon other little things as well. So, if you recall the previous versions of the program, before we had to manually change the language (languages, if there were several) of the document. Now this happens automatically, though not always. In the latter case, FR unobtrusively suggests checking the language of the document.
Returning to the FR recognition technology: why does the program first scan the entire document as a whole, and not page by page? As already mentioned, the text is recognized based on the entire content: fonts of the same size / typeface, tables and borders, indents, etc. are selected.
Do not be surprised if FineReader 12 displays a message that the page cannot be recognized because no text area was found. For the sake of experiment, we photographed an area of a text document on a mobile phone from the LCD screen (however, knowing the result in advance). Fine Reader 12 did not recognize the text of the image, because it was clearly of such quality, which is clearly not enough for this. On the second run, we photographed a page with a text with a digital camera under normal lighting.
FineReader recognized the passage without any problems, retaining the formatting and marking with markers some questionable points or characters that may have variable spelling.
As you can see in the image, these are mainly dots, hyphens, commas - in general, small characters. In addition, it is clearly seen that the program took into account the irregularities, curvatures of the photographed page and aligned the lines of text. Conclusion - FR did an excellent job with its, albeit not a very difficult task.
Occasionally, some minor points may go unnoticed by the Fine Reader program, but they are easy to correct manually. Fortunately, the package has its own WYSIWYG editor, the capabilities of which are quite enough for making the final editing of the document. Spelling check is also available.
How to improve the recognition accuracy, so that later on, to a lesser extent, edit the text? First, you can connect a custom Microsoft Word dictionary. True, it is difficult to judge the increase in accuracy, except perhaps the increase in the vocabulary of a spell checker (a module that checks spelling and grammar). Among other things, to improve recognition, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the program settings (Service -> Options) and select one of two modes:
careful recognition- it can be selected when recognizing documents of any "complexity": with tables without grid lines, text, graphs, tables on a colored background, etc. It can also help with a poor-quality source for recognition
quick recognition- this mode is recommended for processing large volumes of documents with simple design, or if time does not allow for thorough recognition. In most cases, when you have black printed text on a white background, you can opt for fast recognition.
In general, improving the quality of FineReader's work is a separate topic for conversation, the details of which you can learn from the official help, namely in the section “How to improve the results obtained”.
Saving the document. The last stage of work in Fine Reader 12 is saving the final result in a certain graphic / text format. Pre-settings for saving can be specified in the FR options: Service -> Options, the "Save" tab. Each format has its own settings. When saving in DOCX format, care should be taken about format compatibility (DOCX format files are not recognized in Word 2003<). В txt-файлах не забудьте проверить правильность кодировки (особенно в случае с текстом в кириллице).
ABBYY Screenshot Reader
In many large packages, developers very often like to add small service utilities. For example, the well-known application for burning discs Nero includes a set of 3 - 5 utilities that allow something that even Nero itself cannot. Review (here you can download it as part of Fine Reader 12).
As for FineReader, it contains one small Screenshot Reader application. With it, you can take a screenshot and quickly convert it to the desired format using FR. The program is available through the Start menu (Start -> All Programs -> ABBYY FineReader 12.0 -> ABBYY Screenshot Reader.).
Screenshot Reader's capabilities are somewhat wider than it might seem at first glance. (otherwise it would be possible to get by with a simple press of the "PrintScreen" key on the keyboard). In addition to the fact that Screenshot Reader takes a screenshot of the screen (or, more precisely, a selected area of the screen), the program is tightly integrated with FR.
When you press the "Snapshot" button on the Screenshot Reader panel, the cursor changes shape and the screen area selection tool is activated. The selected area of the image is enclosed in a frame for further text recognition (it starts automatically).
In the drop-down list, you can select the desired action: in fact, Screenshot Reader duplicates FR quick scripts with the difference that instead of a snapshot from the scanner, a screenshot is sent to the input.
It should be noted that the program, along with the entire package, requires activation. Upon product registration, ABBYY FineReader 12 Professional Edition Screenshot Reader is provided free of charge as a "bonus".
Conclusion
FineReader is an indispensable program for scanning and recognizing graphic data. The Russian-language interface and the availability of settings will not scare off an inexperienced user. Support for the latest formats, innovative technologies and, as a result, high-quality recognition make the program the best choice, especially since ABBYY FineReader still has no competitors in this area.
FineReader 12 keyboard shortcuts
- Create a new ABBYY FineReader document- CTRL + N
- Open an ABBYY FineReader document 12 - CTRL + SHIFT + N
- Save Pages- CTRL + S
- Save image to file- CTRL + ALT + S
- Recognize all pages of a document- CTRL + SHIFT + R
- Close current page- CTRL + F4
- Recognize selected pages of an ABBYY FineReader document- CTRL + R
- Open Scenario Manager- CTRL + T
- Open the "Fine Reader" Options dialog- CTRL + SHIFT + O
- Open Help- F1
- Go to the Document window- ALT +1
- Go to Image window- ALT +2
- Go to the Text window- ALT +3
- Go to the Close-up window- ALT +4
In ABBYY FineReader, you can change general options for automatic document processing, as well as options for scanning and opening document pages: enable / disable automatic analysis and automatic document recognition, image preprocessing, select the scanning interface.
You can select the necessary parameters directly in the dialogs for opening or scanning images (if you use for scanning), as well as on the tab Scan / Open(menu Service> Options ...).
Attention! If you changed the program settings in the dialog Options, then you need to scan or reopen the image. Only after that your image will be processed with the specified settings.
On a bookmark Scan / Open dialogue Options you can change the following settings:
- Automatically recognize received images
Document analysis and recognition will be performed automatically. - Automatically analyze acquired images
Document analysis will be performed automatically, and recognition will need to be started manually. - Disable automatic analysis and image recognition
The scanned or open images are added to the FineReader document. Document analysis and recognition will need to be started manually. This mode is usually used for documents with a complex structure. Image processing methods.
- Perform image preprocessing
If you want to scan and recognize a book, or open a camera image, enable this option. Then the program, depending on the type of input image, will execute it: remove noise from digital photos, correct skew, blurriness, perspective distortion, align the document along the lines of text. - Determine page orientation
Select this option to automatically detect the orientation of pages added to your FineReader document. - Split book spread
If you are scanning a spread of a book or opening images of double pages, enable this option. Then, as you add pages to your FineReader document, the images will be split into separate pages.
Comment. You can not use the image preprocessing options when scanning or opening document pages, but perform the necessary processing in an already open document using an image editor. For more details see "
- Perform image preprocessing
Launch of automatic analysis and recognition of the received images.
By default, ABBYY FineReader analyzes and recognizes documents automatically. You can change this mode if necessary. The following options are possible:
If you often have to work with text for work or study, then you probably have specialized software for this. For example, many people decide - a program that allows you to scan text and convert it to digital format, digitize documents, edit and much more.
This software is incredibly useful. And therefore, all sorts of problems associated with his work are very acutely felt. For example, the program does not see the scanner. Or only part of the text is scanned. Fortunately, this is all solvable.
Potential problems in Abbyy Finereader and their solutions
When working with the program, the following problems and errors may occur:
- The software cannot connect to a scanner or other equipment;
- the program does not see documents;
- Abbyy Finereader scans only part of the page;
- unable to open TWAIN source;
- a source initialization error is detected.
What are they connected with? First of all, you should check the available equipment. In particular, the condition of cables and other components. If everything is in order here, then the errors may be of a software nature. Remember that it is recommended to use only licensed software. Hacked versions may not work correctly due to changes in the code. It is also worth trying to update the program to the latest current version. This should also include updating the drivers of the hardware itself. If Abbyy Finereader does not scan, then in most cases this approach solves the problem. Fresh versions are downloaded from the manufacturer's official website. Still very often problems arise in the absence of the necessary level of access for the user (it is necessary to increase).
Some problems can be solved in the program settings. For example, an error indicating that a parameter was specified incorrectly. When something like this appears, you need to do the following:
- open the "Tools" menu, go to the "OCR Editor" item;
- go to settings - basic;
- go to the section "Selecting a device for obtaining images";
- find a drop-down list with drivers;
- check the operation of the program and the scanner with each of them in turn;
- leave a driver that does not crash.
In most cases, this list of actions will solve 90% of the problems. Including a situation with an error indicating that the image could not be opened ”(the latter may also be due to an incorrect file format or damage to it).
