[comp.sys.ibm.pc] IBM PC OCR Software Summary

ath@prosys.se (Anders Thulin) (12/10/89)

Here's the result of my recent question of OCR software for IBM PC's
and friends. A rather disappointing result: only two responses. Hardly
worth a summary, I'd say.  Hope it can stimulate further
investigations, though.

Summary of question about IBM PC OCR software:
----------------------------------------------

* Received comments:

+ Paragor, Recognita:

> I have used several different packages, but I have not yet found anything
> that could really be used in Iceland. The problem has to to with all
> our accented characters. Foe example, most of the packages would be confused
> by "accented-i", consider it to be an "i" or a "l". This applied equally
> well to fixed fonts programs like Paragor (I thint that is how it was
> spelled) and "trainable" programs. One program proved to be a lot better
> than the rest - a Hungarian program named "Recognita". 

  frisk@rhi.hi.is

+ Omnipage:  

> I was told that this software can recognize the 10 western
> languages, but I don't know if Swedish is included.
> The price is 1995 US-$ for an AT 80286 and it's also available for a MAC,
> for which it is much cheaper.
> Friends told me, that they are quite content with the results - they've
> tested it with some pages of the Bible, which worked out pretty good.

> It's available in 3 versions:
> MAC for US-$ 795.00
> MS-DOS for XT or AT up to 80286 US-$ 1995.00 (it comes with an additional
>       board for a long slot. That includes 2MB RAM and a coprocessor)
> 80386 for US-$ 895.00

  reischl@siecomp.UUCP

* Reviews

  No reviews were reported or found.

  The PC Omnipage package is probably close to the Mac Omnipage. 
  Reviews for the Mac version can be found in:

  MacUser, February 1989 
    reviews 8 OCR pacakges for Mac, one of which is Omnipage

  Personal Computer World (England), June 1989
    compares Omnipage and TextPert.

* Other software & comments:
  This list is based on magazine ads and info from a few Swedish retailers.
  I don't have any experience with any of these products. 

- Recognita, Recognita Plus:

  Based on contour analysis of letters. Trainable.  Reads 6-24 point
  glyphs. Can read uncompressed TIFF files. 99.9% hit rate claimed.

- OCR Systems: ReadRight

  Template matching.  Untrainable (?).

- Flagstaff Engineering: SPOT

  Trainable (?)
-- 
Anders Thulin, Programsystem AB, Teknikringen 2A, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
ath@prosys.se   {uunet,mcsun}!sunic!prosys!ath