ScanSoft TextBridge Pro Millennium Business Edition, Manual

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Page 2: ...not allow disclaimer of ex press or implied warranties in certain transactions therefore this statement may not apply to you ScanSoft reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes...

Page 3: ...on conventions ix Related Documentation ix Technical Support x 1 INTRODUCTION TO TEXTBRIDGE Basic OCR Concepts 1 1 Features and Benefits 1 3 New Features 1 3 Enhanced Features 1 4 Other Features 1 7 D...

Page 4: ...Scanner Setup 2 8 Setting Up Instant Access to TextBridge 2 9 Updating your TextBridge Software 2 10 Uninstalling TextBridge Pro Millennium Business Edition 2 10 Where to Go From Here 2 11 3 OCR AND...

Page 5: ...4 14 Saving the Document 4 16 Getting Help While Using TextBridge 4 17 Using the Welcome Window 4 18 Using the Show Me How Window 4 18 Using Tips 4 20 Getting Information from Help 4 20 Using the Tex...

Page 6: ...iness Edition User s Guide 6 ADVANCED SAMPLE SESSIONS Session 1 Processing a Document to Use in a Database 6 1 Session 2 Using Zone Templates and Page Types 6 6 Session 3 Training TextBridge OCR 6 11...

Page 7: ...formation you may need to understand and use TextBridge The section Getting Help while using TextBridge provides further information about user assistance Before going on to find out more about TextBr...

Page 8: ...o TextBridge discusses TextBridge features It also describes basic OCR concepts documents TextBridge can recognize supported scanners and input file formats TextBridge can read and output file formats...

Page 9: ...notes titles of chapters and sections in this user s guide Introduces tips that provide useful information about a procedural step or system function Note Introduces information of note about the curr...

Page 10: ...ns and user tips Context sensitive Help is always available by pressing F1 from any menu command or dialog box Online User s Guide An online version of the complete user s guide is provided in Adobe A...

Page 11: ...nloads product upgrades and product updates are also available in FastTrack Additional information about contacting TextBridge Technical Support is provided in the TextBridge Help menu If you must con...

Page 12: ...ology performed simple character recognition of text characters numbers and symbols Today TextBridge OCR includes full document recognition including recognizing text plus formatting such as headlines...

Page 13: ...table electronic document with the original pictures and document layout Figure 1 1 Original document Recomposed document in word processor Figure 1 1 TextBridge document recomposition In most cases T...

Page 14: ...ers expect With TextBridge you can import most paper documents or document image files to your computer TextBridge attains the highest degree of OCR accuracy and provides the output in fully editable...

Page 15: ...ual cells for improved recognition Cell table recomposition is supported even if you do not choose to retain layout Flexible multi page document handling Ability to view and manipulate the pages of a...

Page 16: ...parate pages Easy database importing Use of standard delimited text file output that allows you to import data into many databases ToolTips and What s This Help Instant context sensitive information a...

Page 17: ...results for letters and pages from magazines Automatic zoning TextBridge automatically zones your page into text picture and table zones You do not need to zone the page manually Zone editing You can...

Page 18: ...ng Specifically the program imports and recognizes online document images in BMP PCX DCX TIFF and XIF formats that originate from fax modems and other sources For more information see the Input Image...

Page 19: ...n scanning and recognition are complete TextBridge automatically collates the text and keeps it in the original order Documents TextBridge Can Recognize TextBridge includes a number of advances develo...

Page 20: ...map bmp PCX pcx Multi page PCX used in some fax programs dcx Tag image file format including Alacrity TIFF tif ala Delrina WinFax fax image files fxr fxd fxm fxs eXtended image file xif Image files ca...

Page 21: ...l for the Macintosh 3 0 to 7 0 xls FrameMaker mif HTML WYSIWYG htm HTML htm Interleaf wps Lotus 1 2 3 wk1 Lotus Word Pro lwp MultiMate Advantage II doc PostScript ps Professional Write 2 0 and 2 2 doc...

Page 22: ...the page s in the foreground with the recognized text hidden behind it The document can be viewed and searched Use this type when you need to have searchable text but must keep the original scanned i...

Page 23: ...and WordPad See the documentation for your particular application for more information about importing files in RTF format Note Refer to the ScanSoft Web site at www scansoft com for the latest list o...

Page 24: ...e sessions that are step by step tutorials Chapter 5 shows you how to use auto processing Instant Access recognize a document with complex layout and process a document with text pictures and a table...

Page 25: ...tBridge Pro Millennium Business Edition To get started quickly proceed to the installation procedure on page 2 7 WHAT COMES WITH TEXTBRIDGE TextBridge comes with the following items One installation C...

Page 26: ...your TWAIN driver you may not be able to scan in color with TextBridge If you have a triple pass scanner use it in single pass black and white mode only If you have a Visioneer sheetfed scanner use th...

Page 27: ...r are 1 Install the correct scanner interface card if one is necessary in the PC bus Note that many scanners simply plug into the PC s parallel port universal serial bus USB or occasionally the standa...

Page 28: ...Another version of TextBridge is available for the Macintosh computer Refer to the Web site at www scansoft com for further information TextBridge will not run on Windows 3 1 NT 3 51 or OS 2 BEFORE IN...

Page 29: ...ck TextBridge Uninstall The TextBridge Uninstall dialog box appears 5 Click Yes to continue the uninstall process TextBridge proceeds with the uninstall When it is finished the Uninstall Complete dial...

Page 30: ...e available on your PC If you have an earlier version of Pagis e g Pagis SE or Pagis Pro 97 continue to use the previous version of TextBridge with Pagis Learning about TextBridge before you install i...

Page 31: ...INSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE This section provides procedures to install TextBridge Note If you want TextBridge to run on more than one version of Windows with a dual boot system install TextBridge separate...

Page 32: ...nner Setup wizard You can also run the Scanner Setup wizard yourself from the TextBridge program group in the Windows Start menu Check that the proper driver for your scanner is selected For scanners...

Page 33: ...am that you want to use Instant Access from is not in the list in the Instant Access Control Panel close the control panel open the program then open the control panel again The program is now include...

Page 34: ...y up to date follow the instructions displayed to install the updates UNINSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE PRO MILLENNIUM BUSINESS EDITION To restore your PC to the state it was in before you installed TextBridge...

Page 35: ...apter 4 It also explains how to view zone train and proofread your document in TextBridge and edit your document in your word processor Chapters 5 and 6 provide sample sessions that are step by step t...

Page 36: ...or optical character recognition is the technology that converts documents that you can read into documents that your computer can read Recomposition is the technology that reproduces the formatting...

Page 37: ...m for future use Page type settings include page orientation page layout print type scanner brightness scanner color and resolution document language training data and user dictionary The page types t...

Page 38: ...canning grayscale or color rather than black and white can improve text recognition on pages with difficult to recognize text However grayscale scanning is slower than black and white scanning Page so...

Page 39: ...r Even the most powerful word processors do not have some of the composition capabilities of publishing software In addition some complex free form layouts defeat TextBridge s recomposition capabiliti...

Page 40: ...ontal lines separating fields of information RUNNING TEXTBRIDGE STANDALONE AND INSTANT ACCESS You can run TextBridge as a standalone program or invoke it from within another program with Instant Acces...

Page 41: ...alog box appears for you to control the output rather than the output s being pasted into an open document In addition you can use Instant Access by starting it from an image file s context menu and s...

Page 42: ...boxes to specify which options of the software you want to use Usually you will want to use the settings automatically assigned to a page type However it is possible for you to change these settings P...

Page 43: ...tations Use Portrait or Landscape for faster processing Select the page layout of the original page Any layout Single column Multi column Table As zoned by template When you select Any layout TextBrid...

Page 44: ...ct Any print type TextBridge automatically determines the print type Scanner Settings You can view and change the settings for your scanner in the Scanner tab of the Page Type Settings dialog box Figu...

Page 45: ...olution setting Set the scan page size to reflect the actual size of the original page To override the default Brightness setting uncheck Adjust Automatically and move the slider Processing Settings Y...

Page 46: ...ing The user dictionary assists TextBridge in recognizing words it does not know Select the appropriate training data if you have trained on pages of this type and saved the training data Text Documen...

Page 47: ...this Specify how you want to save the results of document processing Save the output as one document in one file Save each page as a separate document in a separate file Save a new document for each i...

Page 48: ...ded to display text in the recognized language If your PC does not have an available font for the code page of the recognized text a message informs you and suggests that you load a font for the code...

Page 49: ...the appropriate language group and language Document Language Select the main language of your document from the Language checklist in the Processing tab of the Page Type Settings dialog box The Lang...

Page 50: ...start TextBridge and use the Help system Chapters 5 and 6 provide sample sessions that are step by step tutorials Chapter 5 shows you how to use auto processing Instant Access recognize a document wit...

Page 51: ...n the following list Before beginning to process a document Using TextBridge to process a document Starting TextBridge Using automatic processing Using manual processing Performing basic operations Ge...

Page 52: ...pending on the complexity of the document you want to recognize and the results you want TextBridge provides flexibility in performing the steps of the OCR process You can Process your pages automatic...

Page 53: ...To start TextBridge as a standalone application 1 On the Windows task bar click Start 2 Point to Programs then point to the TextBridge Pro Millennium BE folder 3 Click TextBridge The TextBridge main...

Page 54: ...gnized documents in another application such as a word processor or editor Automatic processing is only three steps The following steps describe the automatic process of using TextBridge for page reco...

Page 55: ...n the Add More Pages to Scanner dialog box Figure 4 3 to scan another page or Click the Other Side button to scan the other side of two sided pages or Click the Done button when there are no more page...

Page 56: ...nd with some documents it can require your interaction with TextBridge to get the best output Using manual processing you will find a number of opportunities during page recognition that allow you to...

Page 57: ...e automatically find text tables and pictures on the page or use the zoning tools to mark the zones yourself 3 Click the Recognize button TextBridge recognizes the page including text picture and form...

Page 58: ...ument Selecting the Page Source Before you start processing a new document you can indicate whether pages are from your scanner or an image file To do so click the drop down arrow on the Get Pages but...

Page 59: ...ings for processing specific kinds of pages A page type encapsulates all the processing settings for a kind of document such as a magazine of fax Refer to the section on page types and page type setti...

Page 60: ...own page types with settings optimized for other specialized types of documents Previewing the Page When manually processing TextBridge displays the image of each page in the Image view Figure 4 8 Cl...

Page 61: ...ight Delete the page from the document Add more pages to the document Cancel the process by creating a new file or opening another file Look at the properties of the page Continue processing the page...

Page 62: ...zone the page Manual zoning tools Highlighted zones Find zones Figure 4 9 Zone the page using the Zoning tools A zoned page is divided into one or more zones There are three types of zones text table...

Page 63: ...zoning process and recognizing the page You can also manually zone the page Use the text marker table marker picture marker and erase marker zoning tools in the Image toolbar like highlighting marker...

Page 64: ...ght different types of zones Select zone order Select zones and assign a number to each zone to determine the order in which zones are output to the text document However if you choose to Retain Page...

Page 65: ...he Suspect box is yellow in the view Use the Proofreading tools to correct words You can add corrected words to the user dictionary which can improve recognition in subsequent pages of the same docume...

Page 66: ...saves it You can choose to save the pictures and retain the original page format in your output Note Not all formats can retain pictures and page layout Some formats preserve only part of the original...

Page 67: ...and use It contains many user assistance options to guide you The goal of user assistance is to provide you with information at the time you need it and to provide it primarily from within the progra...

Page 68: ...very time you start TextBridge until you uncheck Show this welcome when starting Click the Show Me How button to learn more about using TextBridge or use the main toolbar to begin processing your docu...

Page 69: ...IF file OCR part of a page rather than the entire page Click on the activity that you want to learn about An animated character describes the activity for you You can also click Show Me How in the Hel...

Page 70: ...t operations Use the How Do I section to look for answers to real life questions that you may have while using TextBridge Tips Tricks describe the best way to perform most tasks Context sensitive Help...

Page 71: ...out a specific word or phrase using the Find tab Jump from one topic to a related topic Figure 4 14 Help Topics TextBridge Help window Using the TextBridge Web Site The TextBridge Web site provides th...

Page 72: ...pter 6 shows how to process a document for a database to use advanced settings for zones and page types and to train TextBridge s OCR The Help system provides a complete reference to the TextBridge us...

Page 73: ...ing a list of what you will learn followed by step by step procedures and explanations The topics presented in this chapter are in the following list Using the sample documents Recognizing a simple do...

Page 74: ...TextBridge Pro Millennium BE Image Files Samples This is the default location for these files however you may have installed TextBridge in another location The sample documents are complex xif dual p...

Page 75: ...ect image file as the page source Click the drop down arrow on the Get Pages button and select Image File 2 Select the page type Click the Page Type button and select Any Page b w which will handle mo...

Page 76: ...extBridge Image Files However unless you installed TextBridge in another directory sample image files are installed in Location of sample image files C Program Files TextBridge Pro Millennium BE Image...

Page 77: ...hout processing a document further 5 Click the New command in the File menu to discard the current page A dialog box appears and tells you that the current page has not been saved 6 Click OK to return...

Page 78: ...text and a logo In this session you ll learn to Select the appropriate page type Use Auto Process Save a document after recognition Edit the document in your word processor When you select Any Page b...

Page 79: ...button to select Image File 3 Select the page type Click the Page Type button and select Any Page b w Figure 5 5 Select Any Page b w Click the page type button Figure 5 5 Page Type dialog box with Any...

Page 80: ...ide Select an image file Figure 5 6 Get Pages dialog box with letter tif selected 5 In the Get Pages dialog box double click the sample document letter tif TextBridge reads the image file as shown in...

Page 81: ...identifies text tables and pictures as shown in the Zoning dialog box Figure 5 8 Figure 5 8 TextBridge Zoning dialog box TextBridge automatically recognizes the characters and page layout as shown in...

Page 82: ...s dialog box 6 In the Save As dialog box complete the following steps In the Save in list select the folder in which to save the text file Be sure to notice where the document is saved so that you can...

Page 83: ...e same position in relation to the text that they were in the original page With Open file when done selected TextBridge formats and saves the document and opens it in the word processor or other appl...

Page 84: ...d or WordPerfect During Instant Access TextBridge processes a document then pastes it into the open document in your text application For this learning session use the sample document named letter tif...

Page 85: ...Programs then TextBridge Pro Millennium BE and Instant Access Control Panel You can also access the Instant Access Control Panel from the main TextBridge application in the Tools menu Help provides ad...

Page 86: ...ons that you intend to use Click OK to close the Instant Access Control Panel and save any changes you have specified To use Instant Access from your word processor use the following procedure 1 Start...

Page 87: ...dialog box In the Page Type box click Letter Using Letter instead of the default Any Page b w is a refinement of the settings In using Letter you are telling TextBridge that the page is single column...

Page 88: ...the sample document letter tif TextBridge reads the image file and automatically performs OCR on it as indicated by the progress dialog boxes After acquiring and recognizing the page TextBridge pastes...

Page 89: ...NT USING MANUAL PROCESSING For more complex documents such as magazine articles you often can use TextBridge in automatic mode However simply using a few additional steps in manual mode can sometimes...

Page 90: ...ies Letter page size Color picture output 1 Start the TextBridge standalone version from the Start button 2 Select the page source Click the drop down arrow on the Get Pages button to select Image Fil...

Page 91: ...Notice that the pie chart is already marked as a locked image This is a segmented XIF file If this is not the correct page in the File menu click New Click OK to close the current document You can beg...

Page 92: ...oom In and Zoom Out buttons to enlarge and reduce the page to examine the zones if necessary Zoom In Zoom Out Modify automatic zoning if necessary If a zone is not assigned the desired type right clic...

Page 93: ...e reversed video text Press and hold the left mouse button at the upper left corner of the area you want to erase Drag the mouse diagonally across the area to erase When you have defined the area rele...

Page 94: ...ely recognized using the Proofreading tools Examine the word in the Suspect word box If you want a closer look at the word as it appears in the original page look in the Word Image window or display t...

Page 95: ...l words The dictionary supplements TextBridge s built in dictionary of common words Repeat this process until you check all of the suspect words and either accept it as is or change it then accept it...

Page 96: ...e file If Open file when done is checked in the Save As dialog Adobe Acrobat Reader will automatically start up and open Magazine 12 View Magazine in your Adobe Acrobat Reader Figure 5 20 Complex samp...

Page 97: ...utputs a tab table or regular text A table zone automatically retains table layout including grid lines if your table has them When you open the resulting document in your word processor the table wil...

Page 98: ...alog box Your original document has both single and multiple columns The description in the Page Type dialog box says that the Table page type is designed for tables Magazine b w page type is designed...

Page 99: ...se settings are retained until you change them 7 Click OK to close the Page Type dialog box 8 Click the Get Pages button The Get Pages dialog box appears 9 Double click scanning tif in the Get Pages d...

Page 100: ...oning tools Highlighted zones Find zones Figure 5 22 Page with text picture and table zones 11 Check the results of automatic zoning There should be two picture zones several text zones and one table...

Page 101: ...ph 12 Click Recognize TextBridge recognizes the page then stops for you to proofread the text Figure 5 23 next page 13 Change the recognition confidence level The default confidence level is Show Susp...

Page 102: ...accurately recognized using the Proofreading tools Check suspect words and correct any that were not correctly recognized You need not make any corrections in order to save your document If TextBridg...

Page 103: ...mposition and is compatible with most word processing applications Be sure to select Retain pictures and Retain layout TextBridge formats and saves the document 17 Open Scanning rtf in your word proce...

Page 104: ...ns for more advanced topics are available in Chapter 6 Advanced Sample Sessions Chapter 6 shows how to process a document for a database to use advanced settings for zones and page types and to train...

Page 105: ...on to select Image File as the page source before you begin a sample session SESSION 1 PROCESSING A DOCUMENT TO USE IN A DATABASE TextBridge supports a number of output formats for specific applicatio...

Page 106: ...Click the Get Pages button The Get Pages dialog box appears Figure 6 1 Select table bmp Figure 6 1 Get Pages dialog box Note The default folder for image files is C My Documents TextBridge Image Files...

Page 107: ...ne has lines marking the cell borders Figure 6 2 Click the Select button Table zoned with cell borders Figure 6 2 Zoned table bmp in Image View 5 Click the Select Zone button on the toolbar and double...

Page 108: ...replace the table editing tools in the toolbar 7 Click the Recognize button TextBridge recognizes the pages and displays it in the Text view where you can proofread and correct any poorly recognized w...

Page 109: ...e File name box Select Text tab delimited txt Check to be sure that Open file when done is not selected you must import the tab delimited text file into your database application Selecting Retain layo...

Page 110: ...ce for use with very similar documents In this session you will learn to create a set of zones and save them as a zone template Then you will learn to define a new page type specify the zone template...

Page 111: ...g 4 Click Find Zones TextBridge automatically zones the page then stops for you to check and change the zones Figure 6 6 You can now adjust the zoning using the zoning tools For the purposes of this s...

Page 112: ...owever if you save the zone template to another location you can still load it using the Load Zone template command available from the Tools menu Specify the zone template file name My Newsletter Text...

Page 113: ...he New Page Type dialog box Figure 6 9 Enter a description Type the new name Figure 6 9 New Page Type dialog box In the New Page Type dialog box type a new name for the custom page type My Newsletter...

Page 114: ...ate selected 9 Select the zone template in the Settings dialog box Click As zoned by template Select My Newsletter in the drop down list Click OK to close the Page Type Settings dialog box Click OK ag...

Page 115: ...ng TextBridge achieves higher accuracy for this specific page and any other pages like it Interactive training is especially effective for degraded documents such as faxes and multi generation photoco...

Page 116: ...ly set to any page layout any page orientation and fax quality 2 Enable training Click the drop down arrow on the Recognize button and select Enable Training Figure 6 11 Click the Recognize drop down...

Page 117: ...and begins recognition When TextBridge is unsure of a word it stops to enable you to train OCR The Training dialog box appears Figure 6 13 Click when you are done training Click to undo last action S...

Page 118: ...tly Click the Accept button TextBridge continues to the next suspect word Sometimes TextBridge recognizes stray marks handwritten notes or dirt on the original page as characters If the word image is...

Page 119: ...the Save Training Data dialog box Save training data in the Training Data folder Enter a file name Save the file with a trn extension Click the Save button The Save Training Data dialog box closes and...

Page 120: ...e of character recognition and formatting accuracy You can use the saved training data to improve the recognition of documents of similar quality and with the same fonts Using training on dissimilar d...

Page 121: ...cations supporting recomposition 1 6 Assistant 1 4 4 19 Auto Process 5 6 Automatic processing 4 4 Automatic zoning 5 28 6 7 Autorun program 2 7 B Basic operations 4 7 Before starting to OCR 4 1 Black...

Page 122: ...anel 5 13 Instant Access to TextBridge 5 15 New Page Type 6 9 Open 5 4 Page Type Settings 6 9 Page Type 5 3 Page Type Settings 5 26 Recognizing 5 9 Save As 5 10 Save Training Data 6 15 Save Zone Templ...

Page 123: ...mages 1 9 3 3 Grid lines 5 25 6 3 H Help 4 17 HTML output 1 7 I Image documents 3 1 black and white 1 9 color 1 9 default location 5 4 6 2 grayscale 1 9 procedure for opening 5 3 resolution 1 9 Image...

Page 124: ...Memory requirements 2 4 Microprocessor needed to run TextBridge Pro 2 4 Microsoft Word RTF 1 10 Modifying page types 5 26 Monitors 2 4 N New Page Type dialog box 6 9 Not a Word button 6 14 O OCR 1 1...

Page 125: ...Pagis Pro and TextBridge Pro Millennium Business Edition 2 6 PDF file 6 11 PDF Image Hidden Text 1 11 PDF Image Only 1 11 PDF Normal Without Word Images 1 11 PDF Normal 1 11 Picture zone 4 12 Preview...

Page 126: ...a zone 5 29 Retaining page layout 1 5 3 4 5 11 Retaining pictures 3 4 5 11 Reverse video 5 21 RTF 1 10 Running multiple copies of TextBridge 5 13 S Annotating a document 3 16 Sample documents 5 2 loca...

Page 127: ...a new document 6 10 Starting TextBridge 4 3 Suspect word box 5 22 System requirements 2 4 T Tab tables 5 25 Tab delimited format 6 5 Table editing 6 3 Table 4 12 cell borders 6 3 editing 6 3 zone 4 1...

Page 128: ...g 1 7 Instant Access to 1 4 3 6 5 12 interactive training 6 11 language packs 1 1 2 4 language recognition 3 13 learning sessions 5 1 6 1 live updates 1 3 2 10 4 21 manual processing 4 6 microprocesso...

Page 129: ...s guide organization viii web site 4 21 Welcome window 4 18 what it includes 1 1 zone templates 1 8 Thumbnail 4 2 Tips 4 20 ToolTips 1 5 Train OCR 1 6 6 12 Training data 1 8 6 11 files from older ver...

Page 130: ...indows 1 3 2 4 Word Image window 5 22 X Xerox PARC 1 8 Z Zone order 4 13 Zone templates 1 8 6 6 files from older versions of TextBridge 2 6 saving 6 7 Zones 1 8 4 12 5 19 automatic 1 6 5 9 5 19 6 7 ch...