Nuance TextBridge Pro 11.0 User manual

LEGAL NOTICES

transmitted, transcribed, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or translated into any

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magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, or otherwise, without prior written consent from the

Legal Department at ScanSoft, Inc., 9 Centennial Drive, Peabody, Massachusetts 01960,

USA. Printed in the United States of America and in the Netherlands.

The software described in this book is furnished under license and may be used or copied only

in accordance with the terms of such license.

I

MPORTANT NOTICE

ScanSoft, Inc. provides this publication "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or

implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a

particular purpose. Some states or jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express 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 from time to time in the

content hereof without obligation of ScanSoft to notify any person of such revision or

changes.

T

RADEMARKS AND CREDITS

ScanSoft, TextBridge, TextBridge Pro, PaperPort, Pagis, True Page, Direct OCR, and AutoOCR

are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc., in the United States and/or other

countries.

All other trademarks and tradenames are hereby recognized and may be registered to their

respective holders.

ScanSoft, Inc.

9 Centennial Drive

Peabody, MA 01960

U.S.A.

Part Number 50-631101-00A

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE iii

C ONTENTS

WELCOME VII

Using this Guide viii

Getting online help ix

Online HTML Help ix

Context-Sensitive Help ix

Tech Notes x

Glossary x

1INSTALLATION AND SETUP 11

System requirements 12

Installing TextBridge Pro 13

Setting up your scanner with TextBridge Pro 14

How to start the program 16

Registering your software 17

New features in TextBridge Pro 11 18

2INTRODUCTION 19

What is optical character recognition 20

TextBridge Pro’s OCR capabilities 20

Documents in TextBridge Pro 21

Basic processing steps 21

The TextBridge desktop 22

The Standard toolbar 23

The Menu bar 23

The Image toolbar 24

iv CONTENTS

The Formatting toolbar 24

The TextBridge Toolbox 25

Managing documents 26

Thumbnail view 26

Detail view 27

Customizing columns in Detail view 28

Deleting pages from a document 28

Printing a document 28

Closing a document 29

TextBridge Documents 29

Why save to TXD 29

How to save to TXD 30

Settings 30

3 TUTORIAL: PROCESSING DOCUMENTS 33

Quick Start Guide 34

Loading and recognizing sample image files 34

Scanning and recognizing a single page 34

Processing documents using the OCR Wizard 37

Processing documents automatically 40

Command buttons 41

Processing documents manually 42

Processing a document automatically and

finishing it manually 44

Processing from other applications 45

How to set up Direct OCR 45

How to use Direct OCR 45

How to use TextBridge Pro 11 with

your PaperPort software 46

Processing documents with Schedule OCR 47

Defining the source of page images 48

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE v

Input from image files 48

Input from scanner 49

Scanning with an ADF 50

Scanning long documents without an ADF 51

Describing the layout of the document 51

Manual zoning 53

Working with zones 53

Zone properties 54

Table grids in the image 56

Using zone templates 57

4 PROOFING AND EDITING 59

Proofreading OCR results 60

Checking recognized text against original 62

User dictionaries 63

The editor display and views 63

Text and image editing 64

Page outline 66

5 SAVING AND EXPORTING 67

Preparing recognition results for export 68

Saving to file 69

Saving original images 69

Saving recognition results 70

Saving a document as you work 71

Copying a document to the Clipboard 72

Sending a document as a mail attachment 73

6 TECHNICAL INFORMATION 75

Troubleshooting 76

Solutions to try first 76

vi CONTENTS

Testing TextBridge Pro 77

Low memory problems 78

Low disk space problems 78

Supported file types 79

File types for opening and saving images 79

File types for saving recognition results 80

OCR problems 81

Text does not get recognized properly 81

Problems with fax recognition 82

System or performance problems during OCR 82

Uninstalling the software 83

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE vii

Welcome

Welcome to TextBridge Pro 11

TM

, and thank you for using our

software! The following documentation has been provided to help you

get started and give you an overview of the program.

This User’s Guide

This guide introduces you to using TextBridge Pro 11. It includes

installation and setup instructions, a description of the program’s

commands and working areas, task-oriented instructions, ways to

customize and control processing, and technical information. The

guide is presented in PDF format, allowing you to use hyperlink

jumps on cross-references and other navigation tools in your PDF

viewer.

Online Help

TextBridge Pro’s online Help contains information on features,

settings, and procedures. The online Help is provided as HTML help,

and has been designed for quick and easy information retrieval.

Comprehensive context-sensitive help aims to provide just enough

assistance to let you keep working without delay. Please see the section

Getting online help.

Readme File

The Readme file contains last-minute information about the software.

Please read it before using TextBridge Pro. To open this HTML file,

choose Readme in the TextBridge Pro Installer or afterwards in the

Help menu.

Scanning and other information

ScanSoft’s web site at www.scansoft.com provides timely information

on the program. The Scanner Guide contains up-dated information

about supported scanners and related issues. Access ScanSoft’s web site

from the TextBridge Pro Installer or afterwards from the Help menu.

viii WELCOME

USING THIS GUIDE

This guide is written with the assumption that you know how to work

in the Microsoft Windows environment. Please refer to your Windows

documentation if you have questions about how to use dialog boxes,

menu commands, scroll bars, drag and drop functionality, shortcut

menus, and so on.

We also assume you are familiar with your scanner and its supporting

software, and that the scanner is installed and working correctly before

it is setup with TextBridge Pro 11. Please refer to the scanner’s own

documentation as necessary.

The following conventions are used in this guide:

Bold Introduces new terms and presents sub-headings.

Italic Names sections in this guide (unless otherwise stated,

the section is located in the same chapter as the

reference).

Names the main buttons used in automatic processing:

Start, Stop, Finish, Additional.

Non-serif

Presents file names: sample.tif

Note

Presents an item of additional information.

Tip

Presents ideas for using program features to accomplish

specific tasks.

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE ix

GETTING ONLINE HELP

In addition to using this guide, you can use TextBridge Pro’s online

Help to learn about features, settings, and procedures. Online Help is

available after you install TextBridge Pro.

Online HTML Help

Open TextBridge Pro’s online Help at its top level by choosing

TextBridge Pro Help Topics at the top of the Help menu. This allows

you to see topics arranged in a Table of Contents, search an

alphabetical list of keywords or make full-text searches through the

topics. Other items in the Help menu provide access to useful topics

or web pages.

Press F1 as you are working with the program to see an online help

topic relating to the current screen area, dialog box or warning

message.

Context-Sensitive Help

You can get concise on-the-spot information in a popup window

about a particular TextBridge Pro menu item, toolbar button, screen

area or dialog box, in the following ways:

Click the Help tool in the Standard toolbar to get the help icon. Click

this on any item on the desktop outside a dialog box or warning

message.

Press Shift + F1 to get the same help icon.

Click the question mark button in the upper right corner of a dialog

box and then click an item in the dialog box to see the popup window.

Some dialog boxes or warning messages have their own Help button,

or a help text. Click the button or the text to get information on the

dialog or message box.

Click anywhere to remove a context-sensitive popup Help window.

x WELCOME

Tech Notes

ScanSoft’s web site at www.scansoft.com contains Tech Notes on

commonly reported issues using TextBridge Pro 11. Web pages may

also offer assistance on the installation process and troubleshooting.

Glossary

This guide does not include a glossary. The online Help has a

comprehensive glossary, with its own alphabetical index and a table of

contents. Please consult it if you want to find the meaning of a term

used in this guide or in the program.

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE 11

1

Installation and setup

This chapter provides information on installing and starting TextBridge

Pro 11. It presents the following topics:

u System requirements

u Installing TextBridge Pro

u Setting up your scanner with TextBridge Pro

u How to start the program

u Registering your software

u New features in TextBridge Pro 11

12 INSTALLATION AND SETUP

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

You need the following minimum system requirements to install and run

TextBridge Pro 11:

u A computer with a Pentium or higher processor

u Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows MeMe,

Windows 2000, or Windows NT 4.0

u 32MB of memory (RAM), 64MB recommended

u 75MB of free hard disk space for the application files plus 10MB

working space during installation

u 9MB for Microsoft Installer (MSI) if not present and 44MB for

Internet Explorer if not present. (These are present as part of the

operating system in Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows

2000.)

u SVGA monitor with 256 colors and 800 x 600 pixel resolution

u Windows-compatible pointing device

u CD-ROM drive for installation

u A compatible scanner if you plan to scan documents. Please see

the Scanner Guide at ScanSoft’s web site (www.scansoft.com) for

a list of supported scanners.

Note Performance and speed will be enhanced if your computer’s

processor, memory, and available disk space exceed minimum

requirements.

INSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE PRO 13

INSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE PRO

TextBridge Pro 11’s installation program takes you through installation

with instructions on every screen.

Before installing TextBridge Pro:

u Make sure your scanner is connected, turned on, and compatible

with your system.

u Close all other applications, especially anti-virus programs.

u Log into your computer with administrator privileges if you are

installing on Windows 2000 or Windows NT.

t To install TextBridge Pro:

1. Insert TextBridge Pro’s CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive. The

installation program should start automatically. If it does not start,

locate your CD-ROM drive in Windows Explorer and double-click

the

Autorun.exe program at the top-level of the CD-ROM.

2. Choose a language to use during installation. The program interface

language is used for displays such as menu items, dialog boxes,

warning messages and so on. You can change the interface language

later from within TextBridge Pro 11.

3. Follow the instructions on each screen to install the software. All files

needed for scanning are copied automatically during installation.

Note Sometimes uninstalling and then reinstalling TextBridge Pro will

solve a problem. See Uninstalling the software at the end of chapter 6.

14 INSTALLATION AND SETUP

SETTING UP YOUR SCANNER WITH TEXTBRIDGE PRO

All files needed for scanner setup and support are copied automatically

during the program’s installation. Before using TextBridge Pro 11 for

scanning, your scanner should be correctly installed and tested for correct

functionality. Scanner installation and setup are done through the

Scanner Wizard. You can start this yourself, as described below.

Otherwise, the Scanner Wizard appears when you first try to perform

scanning from TextBridge Pro 11.

Please follow these steps to use the Scanner Wizard to setup your scanner

with TextBridge Pro 11:

u Choose StartÉProgramsÉScanSoft TextBridge Pro 11.0É

Scanner Wizard or click the Setup button in the Scanner panel of

the Options dialog box or choose a scan command in the Get

Page drop-down list in the TextBridge Toolbox.

u Choose Select scanning source, then click Next.

u Click once on your scanner’s TWAIN driver, then click Next.

u Choose Yes to test your scanner configuration, then click Next.

u The wizard will now test the connection from the computer to

your scanner. Click on Next.

u Insert a test page into your scanner.

u The wizard is now prepared to do a basic scan using your scanner

manufacturer’s software. Click on Next.

u Your scanner’s native user-interface will appear. Click on Scan to

begin the sample scan.

u If necessary, click on Inverse Image… or Missing Image… and

make the appropriate selections.

u Once the image appears correctly in the window, click on Next.

u Select the item that most appropriately describes your scanner,

then click on Next.

u Click on Next to proceed to page size.

SETTING UP YOUR SCANNER WITH TEXTBRIDGE PRO 15

u The page sizes that the Scanner Wizard believes that your

scanner supports are listed in the window. To make any changes

to the page sizes, click on Advanced, make the changes and then

click on Next.

u Insert a page with text but no pictures into your scanner. Click

on Next to begin a scan in black and white mode.

u If necessary, click on Inverse Image… or Missing Image… and

make the appropriate selections.

u Once the image appears correctly in the window, click on Next.

u If you have a color scanner, insert a color photograph or a page

with a color picture into your scanner. Click on Next to begin a

scan in color mode. If necessary, click on Inverse Image… or

Missing Image… and make the appropriate selections. Once the

image appears correctly in the window, click on Next. If your

scanner cannot scan in color, skip this step.

u Insert a photograph or a page containing a picture into your

scanner. Click on Next to begin a scan in grayscale mode. If

necessary, click on Inverse Image… or Missing Image… and

make the appropriate selections. Once the image appears

correctly in the window, click on Next.

u You have successfully configured your scanner to work with

TextBridge Pro 11! Click on Finish.

To change the scanner settings at a later time, or to set up a different

scanner, or to test and repair an installed scanner, please follow one of

these two methods to reopen the Scanner Wizard:

u StartÉProgramsÉScanSoft TextBridge Pro 11.0ÉScanner

Wizard or

u StartÉProgramsÉScanSoft TextBridge Pro 11.0ÉTex tBr id ge

Pro 11.0ÉTools menuÉOptionsÉScanner…ÉSetup button.

Note To test and repair an improperly functioning scanner, follow the

procedure above, selecting ‘Test and configure current scanning source’ at

the start of the process.

16 INSTALLATION AND SETUP

HOW TO START THE PROGRAM

To start TextBridge Pro 11 do one of the following:

u Click Start in the Windows taskbar and choose

Programs

ÉScanSoft TextBridge Pro 11.0ÉTextBridge Pro 11.0.

u Double-click the TextBridge Pro icon in the program’s

installation folder or on the Windows desktop if you placed it

there.

u Double-click a TextBridge Document (TXD) icon or file name;

the clicked document is loaded into the program. See Te x t B ridge

Documents in chapter 2.

On opening, TextBridge Pro’s title screen is displayed and then its

desktop. See chapter 2, The TextBridge desktop for an introduction to the

program’s main working areas.

There are several ways of running the program with a limited interface:

u Use the Schedule OCR program. Click Start in the Windows

taskbar and choose ProgramsÉScanSoft TextBridge Pro 11.0É

Schedule OCR. See Processing documents with Schedule OCR in

chapter 3.

u Click Acquire Text from the File menu of an application

registered with the Direct OCR™ facility. See Direct OCR in

chapter 3.

u Right-click an image file icon or file name for a shortcut menu.

Select a sub-menu item from ‘Convert To...’ to define a target.

u Use TextBridge Pro 11 with ScanSoft’s PaperPort

®

or Pagis

®

document management products, to add OCR services. See How

to use TextBridge Pro 11 with your PaperPort software in chapter 3.

REGISTERING YOUR SOFTWARE

ScanSoft’s registration Wizard runs at the end of installation. We provide

an easy electronic form that can be completed in less than five minutes.

NEW FEATURES IN TEXTBRIDGE PRO 11 17

When the form is filled, and you click Send the program will search an

Internet connection to immediately perform the registration online.

If you did not register the software during installation, you will be

periodically invited to register later. You can go to www.scansoft.com to

register online. Click on Support and from the main support screen

choose Register on the left-hand column. For a statement on the use of

your registration data, please see ScanSoft’s Privacy Policy.

NEW FEATURES IN TEXTBRIDGE PRO 11

The family of TextBridge

®

products moves to a new level with the

introduction of TextBridge Pro 11. Here are the main areas of innovation

and difference compared to the TextBridge Pro Millennium release:

u Increased accuracy – multiple recognition engines working in

tandem offer significant gains in accuracy, especially on degraded

documents.

u More file formats – New image files formats for input are JPEG

and PNG and for export BMP, DCX, JPEG, PCX and PNG. See

page 79. Image saving is now done from the File menu instead of

from the Tools menu. See page 69.

u Working areas – Choose to display the Image and Text areas as

alternatives (as in previous TextBridge versions), or to have both

visible at once, separated by a movable splitter. See page 22.

u Fully-featured Text Editor – A WYSIWYG Editor lets you

modify recognized text and tables in-place instead of just single

words in an edit box. Change character and paragraph attributes,

tabs, borders and shading, and edit embedded graphics. Switch

freely between four formatting levels, including True Page

®

for

both display and saving. See page 63 and page 64.

u Document Manager – Have a better overview of all pages in a

document and manage them more efficiently, not only with page

thumbnails, but also with a table. Each table row summarizes a

page and you can define which columns of information to view.

See page 27.

18 INSTALLATION AND SETUP

u OCR Proofreader – Jump through the suspect words in a

document and handle them one after the other in a dialog box.

Previously, suspect words were only marked. See page 60.

u OCR verifier – This lets you compare any recognized word with

its appearance in the original image as you edit and reformat the

document. See page 62.

u TextBridge Documents – These TXDs open the way to deferred

or distributed processing. They store all images along with

recognition results. This allows proofing, verifying, editing,

additional processing and saving to be done in a later session or at

any location where TextBridge Pro is installed. See page 29.

t Improved User Experience:

Some facilities are replaced with others, providing superior functionality.

u Instant Access

TM

is replaced by Direct OCR

TM

. This provides

OCR services from the File menu of word processors and other

applications. See page 45. Register applications for Direct OCR

with the Options panel, accessed from the Tools menu.

u TextBridge Scheduler becomes Schedule OCR. See page 47.

u TextBridge Assistant (Show me how) is replaced by ToolTips,

Tips of the Day, context-sensitive help, a Quick Start Guide and

the OCR Wizard. See page ix, page 34 and page 37.

u Page Type is replaced by Layout Description (including Custom

Layout). See page 51. Scanning mode (black-and-white, gray-

scale, color) is defined with the Get Page button. See page 49.

u Open file when done becomes Save and Launch. See page 69.

Training is no longer provided, since the extra accuracy deriving from

multi-engine recognition more than compensates for it.

TEXTBRIDGE PRO USER’S GUIDE 19

2

Introduction

You probably use your computer for business correspondence, preparing

reports, handling data and an ever-increasing number of other uses. The

challenge is that, in spite of the digital revolution, certain sources of

information still circulate in printed, paper form and cannot be used

immediately in a computer.

For example, if you want to incorporate information from a magazine

article in a report you are preparing, you somehow have to get the text

from the article into your computer. Painstakingly retyping the article is

not an appealing solution.

This chapter introduces you to the solution: optical character recognition

(OCR). It describes how TextBridge Pro 11 uses OCR technology to

transform text from scanned pages or image files into editable text for use

in your favorite computer applications.

We present the following topics:

u What is optical character recognition

u Documents in TextBridge Pro

u Basic processing steps

u The TextBridge desktop

u Managing documents

u TextBridge Documents

u Settings

20 INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION

Optical character recognition is the process of extracting text from an

image. This image can result from scanning a paper document or

opening an electronic image file.

Images do not have editable text

characters; they have many tiny dots (pixels) that together form character

shapes. These present a picture of the text on a page.

During OCR, TextBridge Pro 11 analyzes the character shapes in an

image and defines solutions to produce editable text. After OCR, you can

save the resulting text to a variety of word-processing, desktop publishing

or spreadsheet applications.

TextBridge Pro’s OCR capabilities

In addition to text recognition, TextBridge Pro can retain the following

elements of a document through the OCR process.

Graphics

Photos, logos, and drawings are examples of graphics.

Text formatting

Font types, sizes and styles (such as bold, italic and underlines

) are

examples of character formatting. Indents, tabs, margins and line spacing

are examples of paragraph formatting.

Page formatting

Column structure, table formats, and placement of graphics and headings

are examples of page formatting.

The graphics, text and page formatting elements that TextBridge Pro

retains are determined by the settings you select. Refer to the Settings

Guidelines in the online Help for more information about selecting

settings.

Note TextBridge Pro only recognizes machine-generated characters

such as offset or laser-printed or typewritten text. However, it can retain

handwritten text, such as a signature, as a graphic.

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