Abbyy ® FineReader Version 11 User’s Guide Fine Reader 11.0 User Finereader11 English

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ABBYY
® FineReader
Version 11
User’s Guide
© 2011 ABBYY. All rights reserved.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
2
Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not bear any commitment on the part of
ABBYY.
The software described in this document is supplied under a license agreement. The software may only be used or
copied in strict accordance with the terms of the agreement. It is a breach of the "On legal protection of software and
databases" law of the Russian Federation and of international law to copy the software onto any medium unless
specifically allowed in the license agreement or nondisclosure agreements.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, electronic or other, for any
purpose, without the express written permission of ABBYY.
© 2011 ABBYY. All rights reserved.
ABBYY, the ABBYY logo, ABBYY FineReader, ADRT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of ABBYY Software
Ltd.
© 1984-2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated and its licensors. All rights reserved.
Protected by U.S. Patents 5,929,866; 5,943,063; 6,289,364; 6,563,502; 6,185,684; 6,205,549; 6,639,593; 7,213,269;
7,246,748; 7,272,628; 7,278,168; 7,343,551; 7,395,503; 7,389,200; 7,406,599; 6,754,382; Patents Pending.
Adobe® PDF Library is licensed from Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Adobe, Acrobat®, the Adobe logo, the Acrobat logo, the Adobe PDF logo and Adobe PDF Library are either registered
trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.
© 1996-2007 LizardTech, Inc. All rights reserved. DjVu® is protected by U.S. Patent No. 6.058.214. Foreign Patents
Pending.
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© 2011 Caminova, Inc. All rights reserved.
Powered by AT&T Labs Technology.
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Fonts Newton, Pragmatica, Courier © 2001 ParaType, Inc.
Font OCR-v-GOST © 2003 ParaType, Inc.
© 2002-2008 Intel Corporation.
© 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Windows Vista, Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
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JasPer License Version 2.0:
© 2001-2006 Michael David Adams
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© 1999-2000 The University of British Columbia
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KINDLE®, KINDLE logo and other Amazon.com graphics, button icons are registered trademarks, trademarks or trade
dress of Amazon in the U.S. and/or other countries...
EPUB®, is a registered trademark of the IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum)
iPad is trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Contents
Introducing ABBYY FineReader ......................................................................... 5
What is ABBYY FineReader ................................................................................................ 5
What's New in ABBYY FineReader 11 ................................................................................ 6
The ABBYY FineReader 11 Interface................................................................. 7
The Main Window .............................................................................................................. 7
Toolbars ............................................................................................................................ 8
Customizing the ABBYY FineReader Workspace ................................................................. 9
The Options Dialog Box ................................................................................................... 10
Working with ABBYY FineReader .................................................................... 13
ABBYY FineReader Tasks ................................................................................................. 14
Managing Automated Tasks ............................................................................................. 20
ABBYY FineReader Step–by–Step .................................................................................... 21
Splitting an ABBYY FineReader Document ....................................................................... 27
Taking Into Account Some of the Features of Your Paper Document ............................... 29
Image Acquisition Tips .................................................................................................... 31
Scanning Tips .................................................................................................................. 33
Taking Photos of Documents ........................................................................................... 36
Checking and Editing the Recognized Text ...................................................................... 49
Working with Complex–Script Languages ........................................................................ 54
Recommended Fonts ....................................................................................................... 54
Saving the Results ........................................................................................................... 57
Advanced Features ............................................................................................ 72
Working in Other Applications ......................................................................................... 72
Using Area Templates ...................................................................................................... 73
Recognition with Training ................................................................................................ 73
User Languages and Language Groups ............................................................................ 76
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Group Work in a LAN ....................................................................................................... 78
ABBYY Hot Folder ............................................................................................................ 79
Appendix ............................................................................................................ 85
Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 85
Supported Image Formats ............................................................................................... 88
Supported Saving Formats .............................................................................................. 91
Languages and Their Fonts ............................................................................................. 92
Regular Expressions ........................................................................................................ 94
Shortcut Keys .................................................................................................................. 96
How to Buy an ABBYY Product ...................................................................... 102
About ABBYY ................................................................................................................. 102
ABBYY Offices and Technical Support Contacts ............................................................. 103
Activating and Registering ABBYY FineReader ........................................... 105
ABBYY FineReader Activation ........................................................................................ 105
ABBYY FineReader Registration ..................................................................................... 106
Privacy Policy ................................................................................................................ 107
Technical Support ........................................................................................... 108
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Introducing ABBYY FineReader
This chapter provides an overview of ABBYY FineReader and its features.
Chapter Contents
• What Is ABBYY FineReader
• What's New in ABBYY FineReader
What is ABBYY FineReader
ABBYY FineReader is an optical character recognition (OCR) system. It is used to convert
scanned documents, PDF documents, and image files, including digital photos, into editable
formats.
ABBYY FineReader advantages
Fast and accurate recognition
• The OCR system used in ABBYY FineReader lets users quickly and accurately recognize and retain
the source formatting of any document (including text on background images, colored text on
colored backgrounds, text wrapped around an image, etc.).
• Thanks to ABBYY's adaptive document recognition technology (ADRT®), ABBYY FineReader can
analyze and process a document as a whole, instead of page by page. This approach retains the
source document's structure, including formatting, hyperlinks, e–mail addresses, headers and
footers, image and table captions, page numbers, and footnotes.
• ABBYY FineReader can recognize documents written in one or several of 189 languages, including
Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Hebrew. ABBYY FineReader also features
auto–detection of document languages.
• What's more, ABBYY FineReader is largely immune to printing defects and can recognize texts
printed in virtually any font.
• The program also includes a wide range of options for output data: documents can be saved in a
variety of formats, sent by e–mail, or transferred to other applications for further processing.
Ease of use
• ABBYY FineReader's user–friendly and intuitive results–driven interface allows you to use the
program without any additional training. New users can master the main functions in almost no time
at all. Users can change the interface language directly in the program.
• ABBYY FineReader Tasks include a list of the most frequently used tasks for converting scanned
documents, PDF, and image files into editable formats, and make it possible to retrieve an e–
document with one mouse–click.
• Seamless integration with Microsoft Office and Windows Explorer lets you recognize documents
directly from Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Windows Explorer.
• FineReader also features a Help menu with examples that illustrate how to use the program to
accomplish a number of complex conversion–related tasks.
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What's New in ABBYY FineReader 11
• Increased processing efficiency
With the new Black–and–White mode, FineReader 11 provides 30% faster processing when you
don't need color. Furthermore, the program effectively takes advantage of multi–core processors for
even faster conversion.
• Flexible e–book creation
Scan paper books and convert them to EPUB and FB2 formats to read them on–the–go on your
iPad, tablet or preferred portable device. Or send them directly to your Kindle account. Convert
paper books or articles to appropriate e–book formats to add them to your electronic library or
archive.
• Native support for OpenOffice.org Writer
FineReader 11 recognizes and converts images of documents and PDF files directly to
OpenOffice.org Writer format (ODT), accurately preserving their native layout and formatting. Now
you can easily add documents to your *.odt archive with a few mouse clicks.
• Enhanced user interface
• Enhanced style editor allows you to set up all the style parameters in one friendly window.
All the changes are applied across the entire document at once.
• Organize pages among FineReader documents for better layout retention.
• Launch document conversion immediately when the program starts, with even easier access
to all the basic or advanced conversion tasks.
• Next generation Camera OCR with extended set of powerful image editing tools
FineReader 11 offers a comprehensive range of new powerful image editing tools, including
brightness and contrast sliders and level tools enabling you to get more accurate results and
improve image parameters.
• Increased OCR accuracy and layout retention with improved ADRT 2.0
Minimize the time required to edit converted documents thanks to better detection of document
styles, footnotes, headers and footers.
• Optimal PDF output
The three pre–defined image settings for PDF files provide optimal results depending upon your
needs – best quality, compact size or balanced mode.
• New recognition languages* – Arabic, Vietnamese, and Turkmen (Latin alphabet)
• Quickly convert paper business cards into electronic contacts with Business Card Reader
(available only in the Corporate Edition).
*Different sets of recognition languages may be available in different editions of the product.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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The ABBYY FineReader 11 Interface
ABBYY FineReader's user–friendly, intuitive, and results–driven interface makes it easy to use the
program without any additional training. It takes new users almost no time at all to master the
main functions.
ABBYY FineReader's interface can be customized.
You can customize your workspace to suit your individual needs.
• Change the window position and size
• Set up the the quick access bar for access to the most frequently used commands
• Set up the keyboard shortcuts — you can change the preset key combinations and add your own to
run specific program commands
• Select your preferred interface language, etc.
Chapter Contents
• The Main Window
• Toolbars
• Customizing the ABBYY FineReader Workspace
• The Options Dialog Box
The Main Window
When you start ABBYY FineReader, its main window opens together with a New Task window
where you can set up and launch a built–in quick task or a custom automated task.
The main window displays the ABBYY FineReader document that is currently open. For details, see
ABBYY FineReader documents.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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• In the Pages window, you can view the pages of the current FineReader document. There are two
page viewing modes: icons (which shows a small image) or a list of document pages and their
properties. You can toggle between these modes from this window's shortcut menu, from the View
menu, and the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
• The Image window displays an image of the current page. You can edit image areas, page images,
and text properties in this window.
• In the Text window, you can view recognized text. You can also check spelling and format and edit
recognized text in the Text window.
• The Zoom window displays an enlarged image of the line or processed image area currently being
edited. While the Image window displays the general page view, the Zoom window provides an
easy way to view the image in greater detail, adjust the area type and position, or compare
uncertain characters with the enlarged image. You can change the image scale in the Zoom window
from the panel in the bottom part of the window.
Tip. You can move images in the Image and Zoom windows with your mouse while holding down
the space bar.
Window toggle keys
• Press CTRL+TAB to toggle between windows
• Press ALT+1 to activate the Pages window
• Press ALT+2 to activate the Image window
• Press ALT+3 to activate the Text window
Toolbars
The main window of ABBYY FineReader features several toolbars. Toolbar buttons provide easy
access to program commands. The same commands can be executed from the program menu or
with keyboard shortcuts.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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The Main Toolbar has a fixed set of buttons for all basic actions: opening a document, scanning a
page, opening an image, recognizing pages, saving results, etc.
The Quick Access Bar can be customized by adding special buttons for virtually any command in
the main menu. By default, this bar is not displayed in the main window. To display it, select the
Quick Access Bar under View>Toolbars, or from the main toolbar's shortcut menu.
In the Pages, Image, and Text windows, the toolbars are positioned at the top. The buttons on
the toolbar in the Pages window cannot be changed. The toolbars in the Image and Text window
are fully customizable.
To customize a toolbar, i.e. to add or remove any of the buttons:
1. Open the Customize Toolbars and Shortcuts dialog box (Tools>Customize…).
2. On the Toolbars tab in the Categories field, select the desired category.
Note: When a different category is selected, the commands on the Commands list will
change according to the set of commands on the main menu.
3. Select a command from the Commands list and click the >> (or<<) button.
The selected command will appear on (or disappear from) the toolbar's command list.
4. In order to save your changes, click the OK button.
5. In order to reset the Quick Access Bar to its default view, click the Reset All button.
The Warnings and Errors Pane displays error warnings and pop–up messages when the program
is running.
To open a warnings and errors pane, select Show Warnings and Errors Pane on the View menu
or on the shortcut menu of the main toolbar.
Errors and warnings are displayed for the page that is currently selected in the Pages window. To
scroll the warnings and errors, use the and buttons.
Customizing the ABBYY FineReader Workspace
Changing FineReader interface
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• You can temporarily hide the windows you do not use. In order to hide/show windows, use the
View menu options or keyboard shortcuts:
• F5 for the Pages window
• F6 for the Image window
• F7 for the Image and Text windows
• F8 for the Text window
• CTRL+F5 for the Zoom window
• You can change the window size by dragging the window spacers with your mouse.
• You can also change the position of the Pages and Zoom windows. Use the commands in the View
menu or the window shortcut menu.
• You can customize the way warnings and error messages are displayed while the program is
running. The Show Warnings and Errors Pane command in the View menu toggles the
warnings and errors pane on and off.
• To show/hide the Properties panel in the Image or Text window, right–click anywhere in the
window and then select Properties from the shortcut menu. Alternatively, you can click / at
the bottom of these windows.
• Some window settings can be customized in Options dialog box on the View tab.
Changing the interface language
The interface language is selected when ABBYY FineReader is installed. This language will be used
to write all messages, and the names of dialog boxes, buttons, and program menu items will be
displayed in this language. You can toggle between the interface languages in the program as it
runs.
In order to do so, follow these instructions:
1. Open the Options dialog box on the Advanced tab (Tools>Options…).
2. Select the desired language from the Interface language drop–down menu.
3. Click the OK button.
4. Restart ABBYY FineReader.
The Options Dialog Box
The Options dialog box contains the settings you can use to manage options for opening,
scanning, and saving documents in different formats, customizing the appearance of program
windows, selecting your preferred language, and specifying the source document's print type,
program interface language, and more.
Important! The options dialog box is under the Tools>Options… menu. It can also be accessed
from the options toolbar, dialog boxes for saving data in different formats, the dialog boxes used to
open images, and the toolbar's shortcut menu.
The dialog box has 6 tabs. Each tab contains options for certain program functions:
• Document
Use this option to customize the following:
• Document languages (the languages in which the input document is written)
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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• Document print type
• Color mode
• Document properties (the file name, author, and keywords)
This tab also displays the path to the active ABBYY FineReader document.
• Scan/Open
Use this option to customize the general options for automated document processing, and
the settings for pre–processing images when scanning and opening documents, such as
activating/deactivating the following:
• Automatic analysis of document layout (identifying layout areas and types)
• Automatic image conversion
• Automatic image pre–processing
• Automatic identification of page orientation
• Automatic separation of facing pages
You can also select your scanner driver and scanning interface.
• Read
This tab contains recognition options:
• "Fast" or "thorough" recognition
• Whether a user pattern should be used for OCR
• Where to store the user patterns and languages
• Which fonts to use in recognized text
• Whether barcodes should be recognized
• Save
This option lets you select the format in which the output document will be saved:
• RTF/DOC/DOCX/ODT
For details, see Saving in RTF/DOC/DOCX/ODT.
• XLS/XLSX
For details, see Saving in XLS/XLSX.
• PDF
For details, see Saving in PDF.
• PDF/A
For details, see Saving in PDF/A.
• HTML
For details, see Saving in HTML.
• PPTX
For details, see Saving in PPTX.
• TXT
For details, see Saving in TXT.
• CSV
For details, see Saving in CSV.
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• E–book
See Saving E–Books for details.
• DjVu
See DjVu format for details.
• View
This option contains:
• Settings for the page view in the Pages (Thumbnails or Details) window
• Options for the Text window, including the option to highlight uncertain characters and
words (and the highlighting color), whether non–printable characters (e.g. line feed) should
be displayed, and what font should be used to display plain text
• Settings for the colors and thickness of borders enclosing various types of areas in the
Image window
• Advanced
Here you can:
• Select verification options for unreliably recognized characters
• Specify whether spaces before and after punctuation marks should be corrected
• View and edit user dictionaries
• Select the language of the FineReader menus and messages
• Specify whether the last ABBYY FineReader document should be opened when you start the
application
• Specify whether document warnings should be displayed in a separate pane
• Select if you wish to participate in ABBYY's software improvement program
• Reset the options to the program defaults
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Working with ABBYY FineReader
This chapter provides an overview of ABBYY FineReader: how to quickly produce an e–document in
a format convenient for editing and use, and how to perform complex and nonstandard text–
recognition tasks.
Chapter Contents
• ABBYY FineReader Tasks
• Common Tasks
• Microsoft Word Tasks
• Adobe PDF Tasks
• E–book Tasks
• Other Quick Tasks
• Custom Automated Tasks
• How to Create a New Automated Task
• Task Steps
• Managing Automated Tasks
• ABBYY FineReader Step–by–Step
• Getting an Image
• Recognition
• Checking and Editing
• Saving OCR Results
• E–mailing OCR Results
• Sending OCR Results to Kindle
• ABBYY FineReader Document
• General
• Working With ABBYY FineReader Documents
• Splitting an ABBYY FineReader Document
• Page Numbering in ABBYY FineReader Documents
• Taking Into Account Some of the Features of Your Paper Document
• Image Acquisition Tips
• Tips for Improving OCR Quality
• Checking and Editing the Recognized Text
• Working with Complex–Script Languages
• Saving the Results in different formats
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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ABBYY FineReader Tasks
Document processing with ABBYY FineReader often involves the same execution sequence, e.g.,
scanning and recognizing a document, and then saving the results in a particular format. In order
to execute the most frequently used tasks, ABBYY FineReader offers quick tasks enabling you to
recognize text with only one mouse click.
Quick tasks are launched from the New Task window, which opens by default after the application
loads. If the New Task window is not displayed, click the main toolbar and then click the New
Task button.
1. In the New Task window, select the desired task:
• Common Tasks
• Microsoft Word tasks
• Adobe PDF tasks
• E–book tasks
• Other tasks
• My Tasks
2. Select recognized languages from the Document language drop–down menu. Additional options
are available (at the bottom of the window) for automated tasks used to convert data into a
Microsoft Word document or an Adobe PDF document.
3. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
• Full color preserves the original image colors.
• Black–and–white converts images to black–and–white, reducing the size of the ABBYY
FineReader document and speeding up OCR.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to
restore the colors. To get a color document, open the file with color images or scan the
paper document in color mode.
4. Click the appropriate button for your automated task.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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ABBYY FineReader tasks are executed subject to the settings customized in the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options…).
While an automated task is running, the screen shows the task execution bar with the task
execution indicator, a list of automated task steps, tips, and warnings.
Note: In order to recognize documents with complex structures, you can customize and start each
processing stage manually. For details, see ABBYY FineReader Step–by–Step.
ABBYY FineReader also includes the option to create your own custom automated tasks with the
steps required for your custom jobs. For details, see Managing Automated Tasks.
Common Tasks
Click the Common tab in the New Task window to access the quick tasks that cover the most
frequent usage scenarios.
1. Select the document languages from the Document language drop–down menu located in the
upper section of the window.
2. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors.
3. Click the appropriate button for your task:
• Scan to Microsoft Word scans a paper document and converts it to a Microsoft
Word document
• File (PDF/Image) to Microsoft Word converts PDF documents and images files
to a Microsoft Word document
• Scan and Save Image scans a document and saves the resulting images. Once
the scanning is finished, a dialog box opens prompting you to save the images.
• Scan to PDF scans a paper document and converts it to an Adobe PDF document
• Photo to Microsoft Word converts a digital photo to a Microsoft Word document
• Scan scans a paper document
• Open opens a PDF document or image file
• Create Document… creates a new ABBYY FineReader document
4. As a result, a new document with the recognized text will open in the application you have selected.
When the Scan and Save Image task is completed, the image saving dialog box will open.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Important! When you run a quick task, data are converted based the program's current options. If
you have changed application options, re–run the task to recognize text with the new options.
Microsoft Word Tasks
The tasks on the Microsoft Word tab of the New Task window will help you convert documents
to a Microsoft Word document.
1. In the Document language drop–down list at the top of the window, select the document
languages.
2. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors.
3. In the bottom part of the window, select the desired conversion settings:
• Document format saving mode
• Keep pictures if you need to retain the images in the target document
• Keep headers and footers if you need to retain the headers and footers in the
target document
4. Click the appropriate button for your task:
• Scan to Microsoft Word if you need to scan and convert a paper document
• File (PDF/Image) to Microsoft Word if you need to convert PDF documents and
image files
• Photo to Microsoft Word if you need to convert digital photos
5. When the document processing is complete, a new Microsoft Word document containing the
recognized text will open.
Note: If Microsoft Word is not installed on your computer, clear the Open document after saving
option in the Save As dialog box.
Important! When you run a quick task, data are converted based the program's current options. If
you have changed application options, re–run the task to recognize text with the new options.
Adobe PDF Tasks
The tasks on the Adobe PDF tab in the New Task window will help you convert various images to
Adobe PDF format.
1. In the Document language drop–down list at the top part of the window, select the document
languages.
2. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors.
3. Select a document saving mode:
• Text and pictures only
This option saves only the recognized text and the associated pictures. The page
will be fully searchable and the size of the PDF file will be small. The appearance of
the resulting document may slightly differ from the original.
• Text over the page image
This option saves the background and pictures of the original document and places
the recognized text over them. Usually, this PDF type requires more disk space than
Text and pictures only. The resulting PDF document is fully searchable. In some
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
17
cases, the appearance of the resulting document may slightly differ from the
original.
• Text under the page image
This option saves the entire page image as a picture and places the recognized text
underneath. Use this option to create a fully searchable document that looks
virtually the same as the original.
• Page image only
This option saves the exact image of the page. This type of PDF document will be
virtually indistinguishable from the original but the file will not be searchable.
4. From the Picture drop–down list, select the desired quality of the pictures in the document.
5. Select PDF or PDF/A.
6. Click the task you wish to use:
• Scan to PDF scans a paper document and converts it to Adobe PDF
• File (Image) to PDF, converts a PDF document or an image file to a searchable Adobe
PDF document
• Photo to PDF, converts a digital photo to an Adobe PDF document
7. The resulting PDF document will be opened in a PDF viewing application.
Note: If there is no PDF viewing application installed on your computer, clear the Open document
after saving option in the Save As dialog box.
Important! When you run a quick task, data are converted based the program's current options.
If you have changed application options, re–run the task to recognize text with the new options.
Tip. When saving your scanned document to PDF, you can set passwords to protect your PDF
document from unauthorized opening, printing, or editing. For details, see PDF security settings.
E–book Tasks
Use the tasks on the E–book tab of the New Task window to convert images to EPUB, FB2, and
HTML, which are widely used for electronic books. The EPUB and FB2 formats are based on XML
and store each e–book in a single file. They are compatible with many e–book reading applications
and devices.
1. Select the document languages from the Document language drop–down menu located in the
upper section of the window.
2. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors.
3. Select a format for your e–book: EPUB, FB2 or HTML.
4. Click the button with the name of the task that you wish to use:
• Scan to EPUB/FB2/HTML scans a paper document and converts it to an e–book format of
your choice
• File (PDF/Image) to EPUB/FB2/HTML converts PDF documents and image files
• Photo to EPUB/FB2/HTML converts digital photos
5. The document with the recognized text will be opened in the appropriate application.
Note: If there is no e–book reading application installed on your computer, clear the Open
document after saving option in the Save As dialog box.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Important! When a built–in task is launched, ABBYY FineReader uses the options selected at the
moment of launch. If you adjust the options, launch the task once again to recognize the texts with
these new options.
Other Tasks
Use the Other tab in the New Task window to access the other quick tasks available in ABBYY
FineReader.
1. In the Document language drop–down list at the top of the window, select the document
languages.
2. In the Color mode drop–down list, select full color or black–and–white.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors.
3. Click the appropriate button for your task.
• Scan to Other Formats scans a paper document and converts it into any of the
supported formats
• File (PDF/Image) to Other Formats converts a PDF document or image file into
any of the supported formats
• Photo to Other Formats converts a digital photo into any of the supported
formats
4. A new document with the recognized text will be opened.
Important! When you run a quick task, data are converted based the program's current options. If
you have changed application options, re–run the task to recognize text with the new options.
Tip. If you do not see a task that suits your purposes, you can create your own automated task.
See Automated Tasks for detailed instructions.
Custom Automated Tasks
(only ABBYY FineReader Corporate Edition)
Custom automated tasks offer more processing steps than the built–in quick tasks. The steps in a
task correspond to the document processing stages in ABBYY FineReader.
• How to Create a New Automated Task
• Task Steps
• Managing Automated Tasks
How to Create a New Automated Task
On the My Tasks tab of the New Task window, you can create your own tasks for your specific
purposes.
1. Click the Create… button. If you already created tasks on this tab, the name of the button should
change to Create / Edit / View Tasks….
Tip. You can also launch the Task Manager by selecting Tools>Task Manager….
2. On the Task Manager toolbar, click the New button and enter a name for your task.
3. In the left–hand pane of the Task settings, select one of the available steps. The selected step will
be moved to the right–hand pane.
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4. Select desired options for each step.
Note: Clicking the button removes a step from the task. Some of the steps are
dependent on other steps and may not be removed separately. For example, when you
remove an Analyze step, the corresponding Read step will also be removed.
5. Once you have added all the steps and selected their options, click Finish.
Task Steps
To create your custom automated task, select one of the actions available for each step:
1. FineReader document
This is always the first step in an automated task. Once you select it, it will be moved to the
right–hand pane.
Select one of the following commands:
• Create new document
A new FineReader will be created when the task is launched.
Specify the options to be used when creating the document, processing images, and
recognizing texts:
• Use the document options selected in the program
when the task is launched
• Use custom document options
• Select existing document
Specify the FineReader document that contains the images to be processed.
• Use open document
Images from the opened FineReader document will be processed.
2. Acquire images
This step is optionl if at the previous step you selected Select existing document or Use
open document.
• Open image / PDF
Specify the folder from which ABBYY FineReader will take images when the task is launched.
• Scan
The scanning settings selected in ABBYY FineReader at the time of scanning will be used.
Note:
a. If images are added to a document that already contains images, only the newly
added images will be processed. If a new document is added, all images in the
document will be processed.
b. If an ABBYY FineReader document to be processed contains already recognized
pages and already analyzed pages, the recognized pages will not be processed
anew and the analyzed pages will be recognized.
3. Analyze
At this step, the program analyzes images to identify text areas, picture areas, table areas,
or barcode areas. The Analyze step will be added automatically when the Read step is
selected.
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• Analyze the layout automatically, then adjust areas manually
ABBYY FineReader will analyze the images and identify the appropriate areas on them.
• Draw areas manually
ABBYY FineReader will ask you to draw the appropriate areas manually.
• Use an area template
Specify the area template to be used by ABBYY FineReader to analyze the images. For more
about area templates, see Using Area Templates.
4. Read
The options used for recognizing images depend on the options selected at the FineReader
document step.
5. Save / Send
At this step, you can select the formats to which ABBYY FineReader should save the
recognition results. You can also program ABBYY FineReader to send the results to a certain
application, send the acquired images or text by e–mail, or create a copy of the ABBYY
FineReader document. An automated task may have more than one saving step.
Specify the saving options to be used:
• Use the saving options selected in the program when the task starts
• Use custom saving options
• Save document
Here you can specify the name of the file, its format, and the folder where the file should be
stored.
Note: To avoid specifying a new folder each time the task is launched, select Create
a time–stamped subfolder.
• Send document
Here you can select the application in which to open the resulting document.
• E–mail document
Here you can specify the name of the file, its format, and the e–mail address to which the
file should be sent.
• Save images
Here you can specify the name of the file, its format, and the folder where the image file
should be stored.
Note: To save all images to one file, select Save as one multi–page image file
(only for TIFF and PDF).
• E–mail images
Here you can specify the name of the file, its format, and the e–mail address to which the
image file should be sent.
• Save FineReader document
Here you can specify the folder to which the ABBYY FineReader document should be saved.
Managing Automated Tasks
An ABBYY FineReader automated task is a set of successive steps. Each step corresponds to one of
the document recognition stages. Similar actions can be automated using tasks.
Automated task management includes creating, editing, starting, and deleting custom automated
tasks. Tasks are managed via the Task Manager dialog box.
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To open the Task Manager dialog box, do one of the following:
• In the New Task window, click the My Tasks tab and then click Create / Edit / View Tasks…
• Select Task Manager… in the Tools menu
• Press CTRL+T
The toolbar at the top of the Task Manager contains buttons for creating, modifying, copying,
deleting, importing, and exporting tasks.
To start processing a document in accordance with your selected task, run the task on the My
Tasks tab of the New Task window.
ABBYY FineReader Step–by–Step
The process in which documents are added to ABBYY FineReader is made up of four stages. An
image is retrieved, recognized, and checked, and the recognition results are saved. This section
contains information about each of the four stages.
• Getting an Image
• Recognition
• Checking and Editing
• Saving Results
• E–mailing OCR Results
• Sending OCR Results to Kindle
Getting an Image
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To begin the OCR process, ABBYY FineReader needs to retrieve an image of your document. There
are several ways to create an image, including:
• Scanning your paper document
• Opening an existing image file or PDF document
• Taking a picture of your text
Scanning paper documents
1. Make sure that your scanner is connected and turned on.
Consult your scanner's documentation to ensure it is set up correctly. Be sure to install the
software provided with your scanner. Some scanner models must be turned on before the
computer is turned on.
2. Put the page to be scanned into the scanner. If the scanner is equipped with an automatic
document feeder, you can put multiple pages into the scanner if you need to process a multi–page
document.
3. Click Scan, or select Scan Pages… from the File menu.
The scanning dialog box will open. Select the appropriate settings and start scanning. The
scanned pages will be added to the Pages window in ABBYY FineReader.
Tip. Typical printed office documents are best scanned in grayscale at 300 dpi.
The quality of OCR results depends on the quality of the source document quality and the selected
scanning options. Low image quality may affect recognition results. That's why it is important to
correctly customize scanning settings and account for the features of the input document.
Opening image files and PDF documents
You can open files in PDF format and recognize finished image files (for details, see Supported
Image Formats).
How to open an image or PDF file:
• In ABBYY FineReader, click Open, or select Open PDF File/Image… from the File menu.
In the dialog box, select Open image:
1. Select one or more images.
2. Specify the page range for a multi–page document.
3. Enable the Detect page orientation option to automatically detect the page layout when
opening images.
4. Activate the Split facing pages option to automatically split dual pages into separate
images when opening images.
5. Enable the Enable image preprocessing option to perform automated image
preprocessing when images are opened.
Note: When page images are opened or scanned for the first time, they are added to a new
FineReader document displayed in the Pages window. Later, when the page images are
opened or scanned, they will be added to the bottom of the open FineReader document.
• In Windows Explorer, right–click the appropriate image file and select Open in ABBYY
FineReader from the shortcut menu.
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• In Microsoft Outlook, select the e–mail message with the image or PDF attachments you wish to
open, and then click on the toolbar. In the dialog box that opens, select the files to open.
• In Microsoft Outlook or Windows Explorer, drag the desired image file into ABBYY FineReader's
main window. The image will be added to the current ABBYY FineReader document.
Note: The author of a PDF file may choose to restrict access to it. For example, the author may
create a password or restrict certain features, such as the ability to extract text and graphics. To
adhere to copyright guidelines, ABBYY FineReader will ask you for a password to open such files.
Taking a picture of a text with a camera
ABBYY FineReader can perform OCR on images created with a digital camera.
1. Take a picture of the text.
Note: Good quality photos are required for successful OCR results.
2. Save the photo to your hard disk.
3. Click the Open button or select Open PDF File/Image… from the File menu.
Recognition
ABBYY FineReader uses Optical Character Recognition technologies to convert document images
into editable text. Before performing OCR, the program analyzes the structure of the entire
document and detects the areas that contain text, barcodes, images, and tables.
ABBYY FineReader documents are by default recognized automatically under current program
settings.
Tip. You can disable automatic analysis and OCR for newly added images from the Scan/Open tab
of the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
To achieve the best OCR quality, select the appropriate options for the recognition language,
recognition mode, and recognized text print type.
In some cases, the OCR process can be started manually. For example, if you disabled automatic
recognition, manually selected areas on an image, or changed the following settings in the Options
dialog box (Tools>Options…):
• the recognition language on the Document tab
• the document type on the Document tab
• the color mode on the Document tab
• the recognition options on the Read tab
• the fonts to use on the Read tab
To launch the OCR process manually:
• Click the Read button on the main toolbar, or
• Select Read from the Document menu
Tip. To recognize the selected area or page, use the appropriate options on the Page and Areas
menus, or use the shortcut menu.
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Checking and Editing
Recognition results are displayed in the Text window. Uncertain characters are highlighted in color
in this window. This makes it easy to locate possible errors and quickly correct them.
You can edit the output document either directly in the Text window or with the built–in
Verification dialog box (Tools>Verification…), which lets you browse through uncertain words,
find spelling errors, add new words to your dictionary, and change the dictionary language.
ABBYY FineReader also lets you adjust the formatting of recognized text.
You can edit recognized text in the Text window with the buttons on the main toolbar and the Text
Properties panel (via the shortcut menu of the Text>Properties window).
Note: When ABBYY FineReader performs OCR, it automatically detects the document's styles. All of
the selected styles are displayed on the Text Properties panel. By editing styles, you can easily
change the formatting of the entire text. ABBYY FineReader preserves all styles when saving text to
RTF/DOC/DOCX/ODT formats.
Saving OCR Results
Recognition results can be saved to a file, sent to another application, copied to the Clipboard, or
e–mailed. You can also send OCR results to Kindle.com where they will be converted to the Kindle
format and become available for download onto your Kindle device. You can save either the entire
document, or selected pages only.
Important! Be sure to select the appropriate saving options before clicking Save.
To save recognized text:
1. Select the format saving mode on the main toolbar's drop–down menu.
Document Format Saving Modes.
a. Exact Copy
Produces a document with formatting that corresponds to that of the original.
Recommended for documents with complex formatting, such as promotion booklets. Note,
however, that this option limits the ability to change the text and format of the output
document.
b. Editable Copy
Produces a document in which the formatting may differ slightly from that of the original.
Documents produced in this mode are easy to edit.
c. Formatted Text
Retains fonts, font sizes, and paragraphs, but does not retain the exact spacing or locations
of the objects on the page. The text produced will be left–aligned. Texts in right–to–left
scripts will be right–aligned.
Note: Vertical texts will be changed to horizontal in this mode.
d. Plain Text
This mode does not retain text formatting.
Important! The list of available options may vary depending on the selected saving format.
2. On the Save tab of the Options dialog box, select the desired saving options and click OK.
3. Click the arrow to the right of the Save button on the main toolbar and select the appropriate
option, or use commands from the File menu.
Note: ABBYY FineReader lets you save page images. For details, see Saving an Image of the Page.
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E–mailing OCR Results
With ABBYY FineReader, you can e–mail recognition results in any of the supported formats with the
exception of HTML.
To send a document:
1. Select E–mail>Document from the File menu.
2. In the dialog box, select:
• the format in which the document should be saved
• one of the saving options: save all pages to one file, save each page to a separate file, or
split the document into files based on blank pages
3. Click OK. An e–mail message will be created with the attached file(s). Simply specify the recipient
and send the message.
You can also e–mail the images of document pages.
To send page images:
1. On the File menu, click E–mail>Page Images.
2. In the dialog box, select:
• the format in which the document should be saved
• Send as multi–page image file if you need to send images as a multi–page file
3. Click OK. An e–mail message will be created with the attached file(s). Simply specify the recipient
and send the message.
Sending OCR Results to Kindle
With ABBYY FineReader, you can e–mail recognition results to Kindle.com server, where they will be
converted into the Kindle format and available for download onto your Kindle device.
Important! To use this feature, you need a Kindle account on Kindle.com.
1. Click the arrow next to the Save button on the main toolbar and select Send to Kindle….
2. Specify:
• your Account
• one of the saving options: save all pages to one file, save each page to a separate file, or
split the document into files based on blank pages
3. Click OK.
An e–mail message with an attachment will be created. Send this e–mail message to Kindle.com and
the converted file will soon be available for download onto your Kindle device.
General
A new ABBYY FineReader document is opened by default when you start ABBYY FineReader. You
can either start working with this new document or open an existing ABBYY FineReader document.
All document pages are displayed in the Pages window. The pages in the Pages window can be
displayed either as thumbnails or as page icons.
To change the display mode:
• Click View>Pages Window. Then select Thumbnails or Details.
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• On the shortcut menu of the Pages window, select Pages Window and then select either
Thumbnails or Details.
• On the View tab of the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…), in the Pages Window group,
select either Thumbnails or Details.
To open a page, click its thumbnail in the Pages window (in Thumbnails mode) or double–click its
number (in Details mode). In the Image window you will see the page image and in the Text
window you will see the recognition results (if the document was recognized).
Note: When opening FineReader documents created in earlier versions of ABBYY FineReader, the
program attempts to convert them into its new format. As this conversion cannot be undone, ABBYY
FineReader will prompt you to save the converted document under a new name. All recognized text
will be lost in the process.
Working with ABBYY FineReader Documents
When working with an ABBYY FineReader document, you can:
• Create a new document
• On the File menu, click New FineReader Document, or
• On the main toolbar, click .
• Delete a page from the current document
• In the Pages window, select the page you wish to delete and then select Delete Page
from Document from the Page menu, or
• In the Pages window, right–click the page you wish to delete and then select Delete Page
from Document from the shortcut menu, or
• In the Pages window, select the page you wish to delete and press the DELETE key.
To select several pages, hold down the CTRL key and click each of the pages to delete one
by one.
• Open a document
At launch, ABBYY FineReader automatically creates a new document.
Note: If you wish ABBYY FineReader to open the last document on which you were working
in the previous session, select Tools>Options…, click the Advanced tab, and then select
Open the last used FineReader document when the program starts.
To open a document:
1. On the File menu, click Open FineReader Document…
2. In the Open Document dialog box, select the document to open.
Note: You can also open an ABBYY FineReader document directly from Windows Explorer by
right–clicking the desired document folder (document folders are displayed as ) and
selecting Open with ABBYY FineReader from the shortcut menu.
• Add images to the current document
• On the File menu, click Open PDF File/Image…
• In the Open Image dialog box, select the desired images and click Open. The image will
be appended to the end of the current document and its copy will be saved in the folder
that stores the document.
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Note: You can also add images directly from Windows Explorer:
• In Windows Explorer, select the desired image files, right–click the selection, and select
Open with ABBYY FineReader from the shortcut menu.
If ABBYY FineReader is running, the selected files will be added to the current
document. Otherwise, ABBYY FineReader will be launched and the selected files will
be added to a new document.
• Save the current document
1. On the File menu, click Save FineReader Document…
2. In the Save Document dialog box, type in a name for your document and specify a
storage location.
Note: Saving an ABBYY FineReader document will save the page images, the recognized
text, the trained patterns, and the user languages (if any).
• Close the current document
• To close a page of the current document, select the page and then select Close Current
Page from the Document menu.
• To close the entire document, select Close FineReader Document from the File menu.
• Save user patterns and languages
To save your user patterns and languages in one file:
1. Select Tools>Options… and click the Read tab.
2. Under User patterns and languages, click the Save to File… button.
3. In the Save Options dialog box, type in a name for your file and specify a storage location.
This file will contain the path to the folder where user languages, language groups,
dictionaries, and patterns are stored.
• Load user patterns and languages
1. Select Tools>Options… and click the Read tab.
2. Under User patterns and languages, click the Load from File… button.
3. In the Load Options dialog box, select the file that contains the desired user patterns and
languages and click Open.
Splitting an ABBYY FineReader Document
When processing large numbers of multi–page documents, it is often more practical to scan all the
documents first and only then analyze and recognize them. However, to preserve the original
formatting of each paper document correctly, ABBYY FineReader must process each of them as a
separate FineReader document. ABBYY FineReader offers tools to group scanned pages into
separate documents to which they belong.
To split an ABBYY FineReader document into several documents:
1. On the File menu, click Split into Several Documents… or select pages in the Pages window,
right–click the selection, and then select Create New Document with Selected Pages….
2. In the Split Document dialog box, click Add document to create the required number of
FineReader documents.
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3. Move pages from the Pages pane into their appropriate documents displayed in the New
Documents pane using one of the following three methods:
• Select pages and drag them with the mouse.
Note: You can also use drag–and–drop to move pages between documents.
• Click the Move button to move the selected pages into the current document displayed in
the New Documents pane or click the Return button to remove the selected pages from
the current document.
• Press the CTRL+RIGHT ARROW to move pages into the current document and
CTRL+LEFT ARROW or DELETE to remove the selected pages from the current
document.
4. Once you are finished moving pages into the new FineReader documents, click the Create All
button to create all documents at once or click the Create button in each of the documents
individually.
Note: You can also drag–and–drop selected pages from the Pages window into any other ABBYY
FineReader window. A new ABBYY FineReader document will be created for these pages.
Numbering Pages in an ABBYY FineReader Document
All pages in a document are numbered. Page numbers are displayed in the Pages window next to
the page thumbnails.
To renumber pages:
1. In the Pages window, select one or multiple pages.
2. On the shortcut menu of the Pages window, click Renumber Pages….
3. In the Renumber Pages dialog box, choose one of the following:
• Renumber pages (cannot be undone)
This changes all page numbers successively, starting with the selected page.
• Restore original page numbers after duplex scanning
This restores the initial numbering of the source document, if you used the feeder to scan
first all the odd pages and then all the even ones. ABBYY FineReader allows you to restore
the original page numbers after scanning in duplex mode. You can choose between the
normal and the reverse order for even pages.
Important! A minimum of 3 pages with successive numbers must be allotted for
this operation.
• Swap book pages
This option is useful if you scan a book written in a left–to–right script and split the facing
pages, but fail to specify the correct language.
Important! A minimum of 2 pages with successive numbers must be allotted for
this operation, including at least 2 facing pages.
Note: To cancel this operation, select Undo last operation.
4. Click OK.
The order of the pages in the Pages window will change to reflect the new numbering.
Note:
1. To change the number of one page, click its number in the Pages window and enter the new
number in the field.
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2. In Thumbnails mode, you can change page numbering simply by dragging selected pages to the
desired place in the document.
Taking Into Account Some of the Features of Your Paper
Document
OCR quality greatly depends on the quality of the source image. Consider the following elements to
ascertain whether you will get the scanning results you desire:
• Document Type
Various devices may be used to produce printed documents, such as typewriters or faxes.
Recognition quality for these documents may vary. This section provides recommendations for
selecting the right print type.
• Print Quality
OCR quality may be greatly impaired by "noise" that sometimes occurs on poor quality documents.
This section provides recommendations for scanning these documents.
• Color mode
A document may be color or black–and–white. More about selecting a color mode for OCR.
• Document Languages
A document may contain text written in multiple languages. This section provides recommendations
for selecting recognition languages.
Document Type
When recognizing typewritten texts or faxes, OCR quality can be improved by selecting the
corresponding Document type in the Options dialog box.
For most documents, the program will detect the print type automatically. For automatic print type
detection, the Auto option must be selected under Document type in the Options dialog box
(the Tools>Options…> menu, then the Document tab). You can process the document in full–
color or black–and–white mode.
You may also choose to manually select the print type as needed.
An example of typewritten text. All letters are of equal width (compare,
for example, "w" and "t"). For texts of this type, select Typewriter.
An example of a text produced by a fax machine. As you can see from the
example, the letters are not clear in some places, in addition to noise and
distortion. For texts of this type, select Fax.
Tip. After recognizing typewritten texts and faxes, be sure to select Auto to process regular
printed documents.
Print Quality
Poor–quality documents with "noise" (i.e. random black dots or speckles), blurred and uneven
letters, or skewed lines and shifted table borders may require specific scanning settings.
Fax
Newspaper
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Poor–quality documents are best scanned in grayscale. When scanning in grayscale, the program
will select the optimal brightness value automatically.
Grayscale scanning mode retains more information about the letters in the scanned text to achieve
better OCR results when recognizing documents of medium to poor quality. You can also correct
some of the defects manually using the image editing tools available in the Image Editor.
Color Mode
If you do not need to preserve the original colors of a full–color document, you can process the
document in black–and–white mode. This will greatly reduce the size of the resulting ABBYY
FineReader document and speed up the OCR process. However, processing low–contrast images in
black and white may result in poor OCR quality. We also do not recommend black and white
processing for photos, magazine pages, and texts in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Note: You can also speed up recognition of color and black–and–white documents by selecting the
Fast reading option on the Read tab of the Options dialog box. For more about the recognition
modes, see OCR Options.
To select a color mode:
• Use the Color mode drop–down list in the New Task window or
• Use the options under Color mode on the Document tab of the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options…) or
• Click or in the Pages window.
Important! Once the document is converted to black–and–white, you will not be able to restore
the colors. To get a color document, open the file with color images or scan the paper document in
color mode.
Document Languages
ABBYY FineReader recognizes both mono– and multi–lingual (e.g. written in two languages)
documents. For multi–lingual documents, you must select several recognition languages.
To specify an OCR language for your document, either in the Document Languages drop–down list
on the main toolbar (or in the New Task window if you are using quick tasks), select one of the
following:
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• Autoselect
ABBYY FineReader will automatically select the appropriate languages from the user–defined list of
languages. To modify this list:
1. Select More languages…
2. In the Language Editor dialog box, select the option Automatically select document
languages from the following list is selected.
3. Click the Specify… button.
4. In the Languages dialog box, select the desired languages.
• A language or a combination of languages
Select a language or a language combination. The list of languages includes the languages most
often used on the computer, as well as English, German, and French.
• More languages…
Select this option if the language you need is not visible in the list.
In the Language Editor dialog box, select the Specify languages manually option and
then select the desired language or languages by checking the appropriate boxes. If you
often use a particular language combination, you can create a new group for these
languages.
There are several reasons that a language may not be listed:
1. The language is not supported by ABBYY FineReader.
2. Your copy of the software product does not support this language.
Image Acquisition Tips
OCR quality depends on the quality of the original image and the settings used during the scanning
process. This sections provides recommendations on scanning documents and taking photos of
documents with a digital camera. There is also some advice on correcting defects that commonly
occur on scanned images and digital photos.
• Customizing Scanning and Image Opening Settings
• Selecting the Scanning Interface
Refer to this section more information about scanning with the ABBYY FineReader interface and the
scanner driver interface, the features of the interfaces and how to toggle between them.
• Scanning Recommendations
• Taking Photos of Documents
• Automatic Image Preprocessing
• Editing Images Manually
Customizing Scanning and Image Opening Settings
ABBYY FineReader lets users modify global automatic document processing options and options for
scanning and opening document pages, including: activating/deactivating automatic document
analysis and recognition, image preprocessing, and selecting the scanning interface.
The appropriate settings can be selected directly from the image Opening or Scanning dialog boxes
(when using the ABBYY FineReader interface to scan documents) and on the Scan/Open tab of the
Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
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Important! Any program setting changes made in the Options dialog box require re–scanning or
re–opening the image. These steps are required to processyour image under the new settings.
The following settings are available on the Scan/Open tab of the Options dialog box:
• Launching automatic analysis and recognition of the retrieved images
ABBYY FineReader is by default set to analyze and recognize documents automatically.
These settings can be modified as needed. The following options are available:
• Automatically read acquired page images
Document analysis and recognition will be performed automatically.
• Automatically analyze acquired page images
Document analysis will be performed automatically, and recognition will require the user's
attention.
• Do not read and analyze acquired page images automatically
The scanned or opened images will be added to the FineReader document. The user will
have to initiate document analysis and recognition manually. This mode is used for
processing documents with a complex structure.
• Image processing methods
• Enable image preprocessing
Enable image preprocessing if you need to OCR a book or a digital photo of a text
document. When activated, this feature automatically decides what action to take depending
on the input image type and applies the correction. Adjustments include removing noise
from digital photos, deskewing, removing motion blur, straightening text lines, and
correcting trapezium distortions.
• Detect page orientation
Enable this feature to automatically detect the orientation of pages added to the FineReader
document.
• Split facing pages
Enable this feature when scanning a facing or opening dual pages. It will automatically split
pages before adding them to the FineReader document.
Note: The image preprocessing features are only available in the Image Editor dialog box
(Page>Edit Page Image...) to process the images opened in FineReader, and are not
available while scanning or opening document pages. For details, see "Editing Images".
• The scanner interface to be used while scanning
Selecting the Scanning Interface
By default, ABBYY FineReader uses its own scanning dialog box to adjust scanning options. If, for
some reason, the ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog box is incompatible with your scanner model,
the scanner's dialog box is used.
1. ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog box
In this case, the ABBYY FineReader interface is used to set up scanning mode. The following
settings are available:
• Resolution, Brightness, and Scanning Mode
• Image preprocessing options:
a. Detect page orientation (enable this feature to automatically detect page orientation
while scanning)
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b. Split facing pages (enable this feature to automatically split facing pages into separate
images)
c. Enable image preprocessing (enable this feature to perform automatic processing of
scanned images)
• Multi–page document scanning options:
a. Use the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF)
b. Apply automatic duplex scanning (if supported by the scanner)
c. Set the page scanning delay in seconds
Note: The Use ABBYY FineReader interface option may not be available for some
scanner models.
2. TWAIN or WIA interface provided by the scanner
In this case, scanning options are selected from the scanner driver's dialog box. Consult the
technical documentation provided with the scanner for more information about the dialog box and
its components.
Important! Consult the scanner manual for proper setup. Make sure to install the software
supplied with the scanner.
The ABBYY FineReader scanning interface is used by default.
To change the scanning interface:
1. Open the Options dialog box from the Scan/Open tab (Tools>Options…).
2. Set the toggle switch in the Scanner group to either: Use ABBYY FineReader interface or Use
native interface.
Scanning Tips
You can set the scanning options in the ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog box or in the scanner
driver dialog box. See the "Selecting the Scanning Interface" section for more information about the
dialog box.
• Make sure that your scanner is connected properly and switched on.
Consult your scanner documentation to ensure it is set up correctly. Be sure to install the software
provided with your scanner. Some scanner models must be switched on before you power up the
computer.
• Place your documents face down on the scanner, making sure they are properly adjusted. Skewed
images may be converted incorrectly.
• Printed documents are best scanned in grayscale at 300 dpi.
Conversion quality depends on the quality of the original document and scanning parameters. Poor
image quality may have an adverse effect on the quality of conversion. Be sure to select the
scanning parameters appropriate for your document.
More information about some of the scanning options is available in these sections:
• Tuning Brightness
• Font is Too Small
• Adjusting Image Resolution
• Scanning Facing Pages
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Tuning Brightness
ABBYY FineReader will display a warning message during scanning if the brightness setting is
incorrect. You may also need to adjust the brightness setting when scanning in black–and–white
mode.
To adjust the brightness:
1. Click the Scan button.
2. In the dialog box, specify the desired brightness.
Depending on which scanning interface is being used, either the ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog
box or the scanner driver dialog box will open. A medium value of around 50% should suffice in
most cases.
3. Proceed to scan the document.
If the resulting image contains too many "torn" or "glued" letters, troubleshoot using the table
below.
Your image looks like this
Recommendations
This image is suitable for OCR.
characters are "torn" or very light
• Lower the brightness to make the image darker.
• Scan in grayscale. Brightness will be tuned
automatically.
characters are distorted, glued together,
or filled
• Increase the brightness to make the image
brighter.
• Scan in grayscale. Brightness will be tuned
automatically.
Font is Too Small
For optimal OCR results, scan documents printed in very small fonts at higher resolutions.
1. Click the Scan button.
2. In the dialog box, specify the desired resolution.
Depending on which scanning interface is being used, either the ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog
box or the scanner driver dialog box will open.
3. Proceed to scan the document.
You may wish to compare the images of the same document obtained at different resolutions by
opening them in the Zoom window in Pixel–to–Pixel mode (View>Zoom
Window>Scale>Pixel–to–Pixel).
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Source image
Recommended resolution
300 dpi for typical texts (printed in fonts of size 10pt or larger)
400–600 dpi for texts printed in smaller fonts (9pt or smaller)
Adjusting Image Resolution
OCR quality is affected by the resolution at which documents are scanned. Low resolutions may
adversely affect the quality of OCR.
We recommend scanning documents at 300 dpi.
Important! For best OCR results, vertical and horizontal resolutions must be the same.
Setting the resolution too high (over 600 dpi) increases the recognition time. Increasing the
resolution does not yield substantially improved recognition results. Setting an extremely low
resolution (less than 150 dpi) adversely affects OCR quality.
You may need to adjust the resolution of your images if:
• The resolution of your image is less than 250 dpi or higher than 600 dpi.
• The resolution of your image is non–standard.
For example, faxes may have a resolution of 204 x 96 dpi.
To adjust the resolution:
1. Click the Scan button.
2. Depending on the scanning interface used, the ABBYY FineReader interface or the scanner driver
interface will appear.
Choose the desired resolution in the scanning dialog box.
3. Scan the document.
Tip. You can also adjust the resolution in the Image Editor (Page>Edit Page Image…).
Scanning Facing Pages
When scanning facing pages from a book, both pages will appear in a single image.
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To improve OCR quality, split the facing pages into two separate images. The program features a
special mode that automatically splits two facing pages into two separate images in the ABBYY
FineReader document.
Scanning facing pages or dual pages:
1. Open the Options dialog box from the Scan/Open tab (Tools>Options…).
2. Check the Split facing pages option in the Image Processing group.
3. Scan the pages.
The automatic splitting option is also available in the image opening dialog (File>Open PDF
File/Image…) and ABBYY FineReader's scanning dialog box. For details, see Selecting the
Scanning Interface.
Important! If the image contains text in Chinese or Japanese, use the Edit Image dialog box to
split pages manually. These types of images are not supported by the automatic page splitting
feature.
To split facing pages manually:
1. Open the Edit Image dialog box (Page>Edit Page Image…).
2. Use the options in the Split group to split the page.
Taking Photos of Documents
• Camera Requirements
• Lighting
• Taking Photos
• When you need to take another photo
Camera Requirements
Your camera should meet the following requirements in order to obtain document images that can
be reliably recognized.
Recommended camera characteristics
• Image sensor: 5 million pixels for A4 pages. Smaller sensors may be sufficient for taking pictures of
smaller documents such as business cards.
• Flash disable feature
• Manual aperture control, i.e. availability of Av or full manual mode
• Manual focusing
• An anti–shake system or ability to use a tripod
• Optical zoom
Minimum requirements
• Image sensor: 2 million pixels for A4 pages
• Variable focal distance. Fixed–focus cameras (lens focused on infinity) should not be used to
photograph documents. These types of camera are commonly built into mobile phones and PDAs.
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Note: For detailed information about your camera, please refer to the documentation supplied with
your device.
Lighting
Lighting greatly affects the quality of the resulting photo.
Best results can be achieved with bright and evenly distributed light, preferably daylight. On a
bright sunny day, you can increase the aperture number to get a sharper picture.
Using flash and additional light sources
• When using artificial lighting, use two light sources positioned so as to avoid shadows or glare.
• If there is enough light, turn the flash off to prevent sharp highlights and shadows. When using the
flash in poor lighting conditions, be sure to take photos from a distance of approximately 50 cm.
Important! The flash must not be used to take pictures of documents printed on glossy
paper. Compare an image with galre with a good quality image:
If the image is too dark
• Set a lower aperture value to open up the aperture.
• Set a higher ISO value.
• Use manual focus, as automatic focus may fail and cause blur.
Compare an image that is too dark with a good quality image:
Taking Photos
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To obtain good quality photos of documents, be sure to position the camera correctly and follow
these simple recommendations.
• Use a tripod whenever possible.
• The lens should be positioned parallel to the page and look towards the center of the document. The
distance between the camera and the document should be selected so that the entire page fits
within the frame when you zoom in. In most cases this distance will be between 50 and 60 cm.
• Even out the paper document or book pages (especially in the case of thick books). The text lines
should not be skewed by more than 20 degrees, otherwise the text may not be converted properly.
• To get sharper images, focus on a part of the image between the center of the document and one of
its edges.
• Enable the anti–shake system, as longer exposures in poor lighting conditions may cause blur.
• Use the automatic shutter release feature. This will prevent the camera from moving when you press
the shutter release button. The use of automatic shutter release is recommended even if you use a
tripod.
When you need to take another photo
Please make sure that your camera meets the technical requirements and follow the simple
recommendations provided in the "Lighting" and "Taking Photos" sections.
How to improve an image, if:
• the image is too dark and too soft
Solution: Try to use brighter lighting. Otherwise, set a lower aperture value, i.e. open up the
aperture.
• the image is not sharp enough
Solution: Autofocus may not work properly in poor lighting or when taking pictures from a close
distance. Try using brighter lighting. If this does not help, try focusing the camera manually.
If the image is only slightly blurred, try the Photo Correction tool that is available in the Image
Editor. For more information, see the "Editing Images Manually" section.
• only part of the image is blurry
Solution: Try setting a higher aperture value. Take pictures from a greater distance at maximum
optical zoom. Focus on a point between the center and the edge of the image.
• flash causes glare
Solution: Turn off the flash or try using other light sources and increasing the distance between the
camera and the document.
Automatic Image Preprocessing
OCR quality may be affected by distorted text lines, document skew, noise, and other defects
commonly found on scanned images and digital photos.
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ABBYY FineReader offers an image preprocessing feature to deal with image defects of this kind.
When activated, the image preprocessing feature automatically decides what action to take
depending on the input image type and applies the correction. Adjustments include removing noise
from digital photos, deskewing, straightening text lines, and correcting trapezium distortions.
Note: These operations can be very time consuming.
To activate automatic preprocessing when images are scanned and opened:
1. Open the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
2. Make sure to check the Enable image preprocessing option on the Scan/Open tab in the
Image Processing group.
Important! The automatic preprocessing option may also be toggled in the image opening dialog
box (File menu>Open PDF File/Image…) and in the ABBYY FineReader scanning dialog box. For
more information, see Selecting the Scanning Interface.
Note: If the Enable image preprocessing option was turned off while scanning or opening
images, the image can be processed manually using the Edit Image dialog box.
Editing Images Manually
ABBYY FineReader 11 offers automatic image preprocessing, which means that the program decides
if any correction is needed and applies it to the image.
However, some images may require manual editing. For example, when only a part of an image
needs to be recognized or if you need to process only some of the pages in a document.
To edit an image:
1. Select Page>Edit Page Image…
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In the Image Editor, the active page of the current ABBYY FineReader document is
displayed on the left and the image editing tools are shown on the right.
2. An overview of the image editing tools:
• Deskew corrects image skew.
• Photo Correction straightens text lines, removes motion blur, and reduces noise.
• Correct Trapezium Distortions corrects perspective distortions.
When you select this tool, a frame with grid lines is superimposed on the image. Drag and
drop the corners of the frame to position them in the corners of the page image. Make sure
that the horizontal grid lines run parallel to the lines of text. Then click Correct This
Image.
• Rotate & Flip rotates the image and flips it left to right or right to left so that the text
appears in the normal reading position (i.e. lines are horizontal and are printed left to right).
• Split splits the image (e.g. facing pages) into separate units.
• Crop is used to crop the unneeded edges of an image.
• Invert enables standard inversion of document colors (dark text against light background).
• Image Resolution changes image resolution.
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• Brightness & Contrast allows you to select the optimal brightness and contrast values to
improve image quality.
• Levels allows you to adjust the tonal values of the image by selecting the levels for
shadows, highlights, and midtones on a histogram.
To increase image contrast, move the right and left sliders on the input levels histogram.
The tone corresponding to the position of the left slider will be assumed to be the blackest
part of the image, and the tone corresponding to the position of the right slider will be
assumed to be the whitest part of the image. The remaining levels between the sliders will
be distributed between level 0 and level 255. Moving the central slider to the right or to the
left will make the image darker or brighter respectively.
To decrease image contrast, adjust the sliders for the output levels.
• Eraser erases a part of the image.
Click the button of the tool you want to use. Most of the tools can be applied either to all of
the pages or only to the selected pages. The pages to edit can be specified using the
Selection drop–down list of the tool or selected in the Pages window.
3. Once you are finished editing the image, click Exit Image Editor.
OCR Options
Selecting the right OCR options is crucial for flawless and fast OCR. The choice depends not only on
the type and complexity of your paper document but also on how you are planning to use the
electronic version.
OCR options are grouped together on the Read tab of the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options…).
Important! ABBYY FineReader automatically recognizes the pages added to a document using the
current options. You can turn off automatic analysis and OCR of newly added images on the
Scan/Open tab of the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
Note: If you change the OCR options after a document has been recognized, run the OCR process
again with the new options.
On the Read tab of the Options dialog box, you may select from the following options:
• Reading mode
Select a reading mode.
Two reading modes are available:
• Thorough reading
This is a default mode. In this mode, ABBYY FineReader analyzes and recognizes both
simple documents and documents with complex layouts, even those with text printed on a
color or raster background and documents with complex tables (including tables with white
grid lines and tables with color cells).
Note: Compared to the Fast mode, the Thorough mode takes more time but
ensures better recognition quality.
• Fast reading
This mode is recommended for processing large documents with simple layouts and good
quality images.
Select the mode that best suits your needs.
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• Training
Pattern training is disabled by default. Select the Read with training option to teach ABBYY
FineReader new characters when it performs OCR on your pages.
Pattern training is useful for the following types of texts:
• Texts printed in decorative fonts
• Texts which contain special characters (e.g. mathematical symbols)
• Large documents (more than 100 pages) of poor print quality
You can either use the built–in character patterns or create your own. Select the desired
option under Training.
• User patterns and languages
You can save user patterns and languages to a file and load previously saved user patterns and
languages.
The user pattern and language file you create stores the path to the folder with your user
languages, language groups, dictionaries, and patterns.
To save user patterns and languages:
1. Click the Save to File… button
2. In the Save Options dialog box, enter a name for the file and click Save.
To load user patterns and languages:
3. Click the Load from File… button.
4. In the Load Options dialog box, select the desired *.fbt file and click Open.
• Fonts
Here you can select the fonts to be used when saving recognized text.
To select fonts:
1. Click the Fonts button.
2. Select the desired fonts and click OK.
• Other
If your document contains barcodes and you wish them to be converted into strings of letters and
digits rather than saved as pictures, select Look for barcodes. This option is cleared by default.
If the complex structure of a paper document is not reproduced
in the electronic document
Before running the document recognition process, ABBYY FineReader conducts an analysis of the
logical structure of the document and detects areas containing text, pictures, tables, and barcodes.
The program then relies on this analysis to identify the areas and the recognition order. This
information helps recreate the formatting of the original document.
By default, ABBYY FineReader is set to automatically analyze the document. However, very complex
formatting may cause incorrect detection of some areas. Correcting only the problem areas is much
faster approach than drawing all of the areas manually.
Layout correction can be performed by using the following tools and commands:
• Manual area adjustment tools on the Image window toolbar.
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• Shortcut menu commands available by right–clicking the selected area in the Image window or the
Zoom window.
• Commands in the main Areas menu.
Restart the OCR process after making the desired adjustments.
Adjusting Area Shapes and Area Borders
Before recognition, the program analyzes and highlights different area types, such as: Text,
Image, Table and Barcode. Different types of border areas are distinguished by different colors.
ABBYY FineReader relies on this analysis to identify areas and the recognition order. This
information helps recreate the original page formatting.
The highlighted area is active. Click an area to make it active. You can use the Tab key to navigate
through the areas. Each area is numbered. These numbers determine the order of navigation. By
default, the ordinal numbers of the areas are not displayed in the Image window — this feature is
activated by selecting the area re–numbering function.
If the text of an area does not fit within its borders (this may happen, for example, if you edit the
recognized text), the text outside the borders of a non–active area may not be visible on the
screen. Red markers that appear on the borders of the area will alert you to this. Once an area
becomes active, its borders will expand to fit the entire text to the screen.
The tools for marking and editing the areas manually can be found in the Image window and on
the pop–up toolbars for the Text, Image, Background Picture, and Table areas (pop–up
toolbars appear next to the active area).
Important! After you have finished adjusting the areas, re–launch the OCR process.
Creating a new area
1. Select a tool from the Image window:
draws a Recognition area
draws a Text area
draws a Picture area
draws a Background Picture area
draws a Table area
2. Use the mouse to draw an area.
New areas can be drawn without selecting a tool from the Image window toolbar. You can simply
draw an area on the image using one of the the following key combinations:
• CTRL+SHIFT draws a Text area
• ALT+SHIFT draws an Image area
• CTRL+ALT draws a Table area
• CTRL+SHIFT+ALT draws a Barcode area
You can change the area type. Right–click the selected area to choose Change Area Type from
the shortcut menu, and then select the desired area type.
Adjusting area borders
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1. Place the mouse cursor on the area border.
2. Left–click and drag in the desired direction.
3. Release the mouse button when done.
Note: You can simultaneously adjust the vertical and horizontal borders of the area by placing the
mouse pointer on a corner of the area.
Adding/removing area parts
1. Select the / tool on the pop–up toolbar for Text, Image or Background Picture areas.
2. Place the mouse cursor inside the area and select part of the image. This segment will be added to
or deleted from the area.
3. Adjust the area border, if necessary.
Notes:
1. These tools may only be applied to Text, Image or Background Picture areas. You cannot
add/delete a segment in a table or barcode area.
2. The area borders can also be adjusted by adding vertices (splitting points). The resulting segments
can be dragged in any direction using the mouse. To add a new vertex, move the cursor to the
desired point on the border while holding down CTRL+SHIFT (this switches the pointer to
crosshairs) and click. A new vertex will appear on the area border.
Selecting one or more areas
• Select the , , or tool on the Image window toolbar and click the desired areas while
holding down the CTRL key. To cancel the selection, click the selected area once again.
Moving an area
• Select an area and move it while holding down the CTRL key.
Re–numbering areas
1. Select Order Areas from the Areas menu.
2. Select the areas in the order desired for the output document.
Note: The areas are automatically numbered from left to right during automatic page analysis,
regardless of the direction of the text on the image.
Deleting an area
• Select the tool and click the area you wish to delete.
• Select the areas to delete and then click Delete Area from the shortcut menu.
• Select the areas to delete and then press the DELETE key.
To delete all areas:
• Select Delete All Areas and Text from the Image window shortcut menu.
Important! Deleting an area from an image that has already been recognized will delete all of the
text in the corresponding Text window.
Changing text orientation
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• Select the desired text orientation from the drop–down Orientation menu on the Area Properties
toolbar (the Area Properties shortcut menu).
For details, see Changing Text Properties.
Changing area border colors
1. Open the Options dialog box in the View tab (Tools>Options…).
2. Select the area type under Appearance and choose the color on the Color palette.
Picture Not Detected
Picture areas mark the pictures contained in your document. You can also use picture areas to
select any text fragments that you want treated as pictures (ABBYY FineReader will not perform
OCR on these areas). If the program fails to detect a picture automatically, use the Picture tool to
draw a picture area around the picture manually.
1. On the toolbar at the top of the Image window, select tool and then use the mouse to draw a
rectangle around the picture on your image.
2. Re–launch the OCR process.
If there is text printed over a picture in your document, draw a Background Picture area around
this text.
1. In the Image window, select the tool on the toolbar and draw a frame around the picture.
Note: If you do not see this tool on the toolbar, add it. See Toolbars for detailed instructions.
2. Start the OCR process.
You can change an existing area to Picture or Background Picture. Right–click the area and
select Change Area Type>Picture or >Background Picture respectively.
Barcode Not Detected
Barcode areas mark the barcodes contained in a document. If your document contains a barcode
that you would like to render as a sequence of letters and digits rather than as an image, select the
barcode and change the area type to Barcode.
Note: Barcode recognition is disabled by default. To enable barcode recognition, select
Tools>Options…, click the Read tab and select Look for barcodes.
To make ABBYY FineReader detect barcodes:
1. Hold CTRL+SHIFT+ALT and use the mouse to select an area in the Image window or the Zoom
window.
2. Run image recognition.
Barcode types supported by ABBYY FineReader 11:
Code 3 of 9
Code 128
Check Interleaved
2 of 5
UPC–A
Check Code 3 of 9
EAN 8
Matrix 2 of 5
UPC–E
Code 3 of 9 without
asterisk
EAN 13
Postnet
PDF417
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Codabar
IATA 2 of 5
Industrial 2 of 5
Aztec code
Code 93
Interleaved 2
of 5
UCC–128
Data
Matrix
Note: The default barcode type is Autodetect, which means that barcode types are to be detected
automatically. However, not all barcode types can be autodetected, and sometimes you may need to
select the appropriate type manually on the Area Properties panel.
ABBYY FineReader can automatically detect the following types of barcode: Code 3 of 9, Code 93,
Code 128, EAN 8, EAN 13, Postnet, UCC–128, UPC–E, PDF417.
Table Not Detected
Table areas mark tables or text fragments arranged in a tabular form. If the program fails to detect
a table automatically, use the Table tool to draw a table area around the table.
1. Select the tool on the toolbar at the top of the Image window and use the mouse to draw a
rectangle around the table on your image.
2. Tight–click the table and select Analyze Table Structure from the shortcut menu or click the
button on the pop–up toolbar of the Table area.
3. Using the pop–up toolbar, the table shortcut menu, or the commands from the main Areas menu to
edit the results.
4. Re–launch the OCR process.
You can change the type of an already recognized area to Table. This is achieved by right–clicking
the area and selecting Change Area Type>Table from the shortcut menu.
Table Cells Detected Incorrectly
If ABBYY FineReader failed to correctly detect the rows and columns in a table while running
automatically, you can adjust the layout manually and re–run the OCR process.
Editing Tables in the Image window or the Zoom window:
• Use the Areas menu commands and the shortcut menu by right–clicking the selected Table area
to:
• Analyze Table Structure — automatic table structure analysis replaces manually drawing
vertical and horizontal separators in a table.
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• Split Cells, Merge Cells, and Merge Rows correct of the rows and columns that were
automatically detected in the table.
• Use the pop–up toolbar for the selected table to:
Add a horizontal or vertical separator, delete table separators, analyze table structure, split
table cells, or merge table cells or rows.
Click the Table area and select the appropriate tool from the pop–up toolbar:
.
Tip. To toggle separators on or off, select the on the pop–up toolbar.
Notes:
1. The cell splitting command can only be applied to table cells that were previously merged.
2. To merge or split table cells or rows, select them on the image and then choose the appropriate tool
or menu command.
3. If the table contains vertical text cells, you may need to change the text properties first.
4. If the table cells only contain an image, check the Treat selected cells as picture option on the
Area Properties panel (the >Area Properties shortcut menu).
If the cell contains a combination of image and text, select the image to turn it into a dedicated area
inside the cell.
Adjusting Text Area Properties
When performing automatic document analysis, ABBYY FineReader detects different area types
on document pages (such as tables, images, text and barcodes). The program also analyzes the
document structure and identifies headings and other layout elements such as headers and footers,
images and diagram captions, etc.
You can manually change incorrectly defined properties in some Text and Table areas.
1. Select the area in the Image window or the Zoom window and adjust the properties in the Area
Properties panel of the Image window.
The Area Properties panel lets you set the following properties:
• Language — For details, see Document languages.
• Function displays the function of the text, i.e. header or footer, heading, etc. (applies only
to Text areas).
• Orientation — For details, see Vertical or Horizontal Text Not Recognized Properly.
• Print type — For details, see Print Type.
• Inversion — For details, see Vertical or Horizontal Text Not Recognized Properly.
• Direction of hieroglyphic text — For details, see Recognizing Documents in More Than
One Language.
Notes:
a. Use / buttons to navigate left and right along the properties panel if the Image window
is not wide enough to display the entire properties panel.
b. Some of the text properties can be modified using the shortcut menu that becomes available
when you right–click a Text area.
2. Re–launch the OCR process after making the necessary changes.
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Vertical or Inverted Text Not Recognized Properly
A fragment of recognized text may contain a large number of errors if the orientation of the
fragment was detected incorrectly or if the text in the fragment is inverted (i.e. light text is printed
on a dark background).
To solve this problem:
1. In the Image window, select the area or the table cell that contains vertical or inverted text.
2. In the Image window on the Area Properties panel (right–click the area and select Area
Properties to make the panel visible), select:
• Horizontal Script or Vertical Script from the Direction of hieroglyphic text drop–
down list
or
• Inverted from the Inversion drop–down list
3. Re–launch the OCR process.
Paper Document Contains Decorative (Non–Standard) Fonts
The Training mode improves OCR quality on documents with decorative fonts or documents
containing special characters (e.g. mathematical symbols).
In Training mode, a user pattern is created which can be used when performing OCR on the entire
text.
To use a pattern to recognize a document:
1. Open the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…) and then click the Read tab.
2. Under Training, select the Use only user pattern option.
Note: If you select Use built–in and user patterns, ABBYY FineReader will use both the
user patterns and its factory preset patterns for OCR.
3. Click the Pattern Editor… button.
4. In the Pattern Editor dialog box, select the desired pattern and then click OK.
5. In the ABBYY FineReader main window, click the Read button.
Incorrect Font in Recognized Text or Some Characters Are
Replaced with "?" or "□"
If you see "?" or "□" replacing letters in the Text window, check to see if the fonts selected to
display the recognized text contain all the characters used in your text.
You can change the font in the recognized text without launching the OCR process again.
To change the font in a short document:
1. Select a text fragment where some characters are displayed incorrectly.
2. Right–click the selection and select Properties from the shortcut menu.
3. On the Text Properties panel, select the desired font. The font in the selected text fragment will
change accordingly.
To change the font in a long document where styles are used:
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1. On the Tools menu, click Style Editor…
2. In the Style Editor dialog box, select the desired style and change its font.
3. Click OK. The font in all the text fragments using this style will change accordingly.
Important! If an ABBYY FineReader document was recognized or edited on another computer, the
text in the document may be displayed incorrectly on your computer. If this is the case, make sure
that all the fonts used in this document are installed on your machine.
Checking and Editing the Recognized Text
Once the OCR process is complete, the recognized text appears in the Text window for review and
editing. This section provides you with information on working with recognized text.
• Checking the Text in the Text Window
• Checking Spelling
• User Dictionary: Adding and Removing Words
• Using Styles
• Editing Out Confidential Information
• Editing Hyperlinks
• Editing Tables
Checking Text in the Text Window
You can check, edit, and format recognition results in the Text window.
The Text window toolbar in the upper part of the window lets you open the Verification dialog
box. This dialog box activates spellchecking, which can also be run by using the spellchecker
control buttons in the Text window.
Use the / buttons to go to the next/previous uncertain word or character. If the uncertain
characters are not highlighted, click the button on the toolbar of the Text window.
To check an uncertain word in the Text window:
1. Click the word in the Text window. In the Image window, the location of the word will be shown,
and, in the Zoom window, you will see the magnified image of the word.
2. Make changes in the word in the Text window, if necessary.
This method is convenient when you need to compare the source and resulting documents.
The Main Toolbar provides access to the drop–down saving options menu.
The tools for formatting recognized text are available on:
• The right–hand side of the Main Toolbar.
• The Text Properties panel (right–click and select Text>Properties).
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Note: Use the / buttons to navigate left and right along the properties panel if
the Text window is not wide enough to display the entire text properties panel.
Spelling–checking with the Verification dialog box
You can check the words with uncertain characters from the Verification dialog box
(Tools>Verification…).
In this dialog box, you can choose to apply (or reject) the suggested changes either to the current
occurrence or to all the occurrences of a word in the text.
• Click Ignore to skip the word without making changes.
The highlighting will be removed.
• Click Replace to replace the word with one of the suggested corrections.
• Click Add to place the selected word into the dictionary.
At next use, this word will not be treated as an error.
Tip. To change the spelling check options, click Options…
For character–based languages, the program will suggest similar–looking characters when a direct
match is unclear.
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User Dictionary: Adding and Removing Words
If your text contains many special terms, abbreviations, and proper names, adding these terms to
the user dictionary will improve OCR quality. For each added word, ABBYY FineReader generates all
possible word forms to allow the program to reliably recognize it in its various forms (plural, verb,
etc.).
To add a word to the dictionary while checking the spelling:
• Select Tools>Verification… and click the Add button in the Verification dialog box
or
• In the Text window, right–click the word and select the Add to Dictionary command
You can also add and remove words while viewing a user dictionary for a particular language.
1. On the Tools menu, click View Dictionaries…
2. In the User Dictionaries dialog box, select the desired language and click View…
3. In the Dictionary dialog box, type a word and click Add… or select a word and click Delete.
The program will notify you if the desired word is already in the dictionary.
You can import user dictionaries created in previous versions of ABBYY FineReader (versions 8.0,
9.0, and 10 are supported).
1. On the Tools menu, click View Dictionaries…, select the desired language, and click View…
2. In the Dictionary dialog box, click the Import… button and select the dictionary file you wish to
import (it must have the extension *.pmd, *.txt, or *.dic).
Using Styles
During text recognition, ABBYY FineReader detects the styles and formatting used in the original
document. These styles and formatting are reproduced in the output document by creating the
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appropriate style hierarchy. If necessary, you can review and edit the document styles and create
new styles to format recognized text in the Text window.
To apply a style to a selected text fragment:
1. Select the desired text fragment in the Text window.
2. Select Properties from the shortcut menu.
3. Select the desired style in the open Text Properties panel from the Style list.
Note. When saving recognized texts in RTF, DOC, DOCX, and ODT formats, all styles are preserved.
Changing, creating, and merging styles:
1. On the Tools menu, click Style Editor…
2. In the Style Editor dialog box, select the desired style and adjust its name, font, font size,
character spacing, and scale.
3. To create a new style, click New. The newly created style will be added to the list of existing styles
where you can adjust it.
4. To merge multiple styles into one, select the styles to merge and click Merge…. In the Merge
Styles dialog box, specify the style into which to merge the selected styles.
5. Click Save to save the changes.
You can navigate between text fragments printed in identical styles. In the Style Editor, select the
desired style and click Previous Fragment or Next Fragment.
Editing Out Confidential Information
(ABBYY FineReader Corporate Edition only)
In ABBYY FineReader 11, you can easily remove confidential information from a recognized text
1. On the Tools menu, click Redaction Mode or click the button on the main toolbar.
The mouse pointer will change to a marker.
2. In the Text window, use the marker to black out the text you wish to conceal.
Tip. If you black out some characters by mistake, you can undo the last redaction by
pressing CTRL+Z or clicking the Undo on the main toolbar.
3. Save your document.
The blacked out text will appear as dots in the output document. If the saving format you selected
supports text and background colors, these will be black dots against a black background.
Note: When you save a page, the blacked out areas will appear as black rectangles in the output
document.
To switch off the Redaction mode, either
• Select Tools>Redaction Mode once again or
• Click the button on the main toolbar
Editing Hyperlinks
ABBYY FineReader detects hyperlinks and recreates their destination addresses in the output
document. Detected hyperlinks are underlined and displayed in blue.
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When viewing the recognized document in the Text window, rest the mouse pointer on a hyperlink
to view its address. To follow a hyperlink, select Open Hyperlink from its shortcut menu, or press
CTRL and left–click the hyperlink.
To add, delete or change the text or address of a hyperlink:
1. In the Text window, select the desired hyperlink.
2. To remove a hyperlink, right–click it and select Remove Hyperlink from the shortcut menu.
3. To add or change a hyperlink, click Hyperlink… in its shortcut menu, or click on the main
toolbar at the top of the Text window. In the Edit Hyperlink dialog box, you can:
d. Make the necessary text changes in the Text to display field.
e. Select/change the hyperlink type in the Link to group:
• Select Web page to link to an Internet page.
In the Address field, specify the protocol and the URL of the page
(e.g.
http://www.abbyy.com
).
• Select Local file to link to a file.
Click Browse… to browse for the file to which the hyperlink will
point (e.g. file://D:/MyDocuments/ABBYY FineReaderGuide.pdf).
• Select E–mail address so that the user can send an e–mail
message to the address contained in the hyperlink by simply
clicking the hyperlink.
In the Address field, specify the protocol and the e–mail address
(e.g.
mailto:office@abbyy.com
).
Editing Tables
ABBYY FineReader lets you edit recognized tables in the Text window. The following options are
available:
1. Split table cells.
Click the left mouse button to select a cell, and then select Split Table Cells from the Edit
menu.
Important! This command can only be applied to table cells that have been previously
merged.
2. Merge table cells.
Use the mouse to select the table cells to be merged, and then select Merge Table Cells
from the Edit menu.
3. Merge table rows.
Use the mouse to select the table rows to be merged, and then select Merge Table Rows
from the Edit menu.
4. Delete cell contents.
Select the cell (or a group of cells) with the contents you wish to delete and press the
DELETE key.
Note: By default, the table editing tools are not displayed on the toolbar. You can add buttons to
the toolbar by using the Customize Toolbars and Shortcuts dialog box (Tools>Customize…).
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Working with Complex–Script Languages
With ABBYY FineReader, you can also recognize documents in Hebrew, Yiddish, Japanese, Chinese,
Thai, Korean, and Arabic languages. Consider the following when working with documents in
character–based languages and documents in which a combination of character–based and
European languages is used.
You may need to do the following to recognize these types of documents:
• Installing Additional Languages
• Recommended Fonts
This section contains tips and guidelines on improving recognized text quality:
• Disabling Automatic Image Processing
• Recognizing Documents Written in More Than One Language
• Non–European Characters Not Displayed in the Text Window
• Selecting the Direction of Recognized Text
Installing Additional Languages
To recognize texts written in Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, or Yiddish you may
need to install these languages separately.
Note: Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7 support these languages by default.
To install new languages in Microsoft Windows XP:
1. Click Start on the Control panel.
2. Select Control Panel>Regional and Language Options.
3. On the Language tab, select:
• Install files for complex–script and right–to–left languages
to be able to recognize texts in Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, and Thai
• Install files for East Asian languages
to be able to recognize texts in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean
4. Click OK.
Recommended Fonts
The table below lists the recommended fonts for working with Hebrew, Yiddish, Thai, Chinese, and
Japanese texts.
OCR Language
Recommended Font
Arabic
Arial™ Unicode™ MS*
Hebrew
Arial™ Unicode™ MS*
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Yiddish
Arial™ Unicode™ MS*
Thai
Arial™ Unicode™ MS*
Aharoni
David
Levenim mt
Miriam
Narkisim
Rod
Chinese (Simplified),
Chinese (Traditional),
Japanese, Korean,
Korean (Hangul)
Arial™ Unicode™ MS*
SimSun fonts
For example: SimSun (Founder Extended), SimSun–18030, NSimSun.
Simhei
YouYuan
PMingLiU
MingLiU
Ming(for–ISO10646)
STSong
* This font is installed together with Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2000 or later.
Disabling Automatic Image Processing
By default, any pages you add to an ABBYY FineReader document are automatically recognized.
However, if your document contains a text in a Character–based language combined with a
European language, we recommend disabling automatic page orientation detection and using the
dual page splitting option only if all of the page images have the correct orientation (e.g., they
were not scanned upside down).
The Detect page orientation and Split facing pages options can be enabled and disabled
directly in the image scanning and opening dialog boxes, and from the Options dialog box on the
Scan/Open tab.
Note: To split facing pages in Arabic, Hebrew, or Yiddish, be sure to select the corresponding
recognition language first and only then select the Split facing pages option. This will ensure that
the pages are arranged in the correct order. You can also restore the original page numbering by
selecting the Swap book pages option. For details, see Numbering Pages in an ABBYY FineReader
Document.
If your document has a complex structure, we recommend disabling automatic analysis and OCR for
images and performing these operations manually.
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To disable automatic analysis and OCR:
1. Open the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
2. Select the Do not read and analyze acquired page images automatically option on the
Scan/Open tab.
3. Click OK.
Recognizing Documents Written in More Than One Language
The instructions below will help you process a document written in English and Chinese.
1. Disable the automatic analysis and OCR options.
2. On the main toolbar, select More languages… from the Document Languages drop–down list.
Select Specify languages manually from the Language Editor dialog box and select Chinese
and English from the language list (for details, see Document Languages).
3. Scan or open images after disabling Detect page orientation. The dual page splitting option
should be used only if all page images have the correct orientation. The pages will be added to the
current ABBYY FineReader document after the command is executed.
Important! When scanning, be sure that the pages are properly centered on the scanner's
glass bed. If the skew is too large, the text may be recognized incorrectly.
4. To draw areas on the image manually, use the tools for Adjusting Area Shapes and Area
Borders.
Note: If the structure of your document is simple, you can launch automatic layout analysis.
Click the (Analysis) button on the toolbar of the Image window or press CTRL+E.
5. If there are areas on the image where text is written in only one language:
a. Select these areas.
b. Select the language of the text area (Chinese or English) on the Area Properties panel.
Important! You can only specify a language for areas of the same type. If you
select both text and table areas, you won't be able to specify a language.
c. If necessary, select the text direction from the Orientation drop–down menu (for details,
see Vertical or Inverted Text Not Recognized Properly).
d. For texts in character–based languages, the program provides a selection of the text
directions in the Direction of hieroglyphic text drop–down menu (for details, see
Changing Text Properties).
6. Click Recognize.
Non–European Characters Not Displayed in the Text Window
If a character–based language is displayed incorrectly in the Text window, you may have selected
the Plain text mode.
To change the font used in Plain text mode:
1. Open the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
2. Go to the View tab.
3. Select Arial Unicode MS from the Font used to display plain text drop–down menu.
4. Click OK.
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If nothing has changed in the Text window, refer to: Incorrect Font in Recognized Text or Some
Characters Are Replaced with "?" or "□".
Selecting the Direction of Recognized Text
ABBYY FineReader automatically detects text direction when it performs OCR. If required, you can
manually adjust the direction of recognized text.
1. Go to the Text window.
2. Select one or several paragraphs.
3. Click on the main toolbar.
Note: For character–based languages, use the Direction of hieroglyphic text option to select
the text direction before text recognition is performed. For details, see Changing Text Properties.
Saving the Results
Recognized texts can be saved to a file, sent to another application without saving them to disk,
copied to the Clipboard, or sent by e–mail as attachments in any of the supported saving formats.
• Saving: General
Describes the saving capabilities provided by ABBYY FineReader.
• Document Properties
• Saving text in RTF, DOC, DOCX or ODT format
• Saving in XLSX
• Saving in PDF
• Saving in PDF/A
• PDF Security Settings
Explains the security settings available when saving in PDF: protecting your document with
passwords that prevent unauthorized opening, editing, or printing and selecting an encryption level
compatible with earlier versions of Adobe Acrobat.
• Saving in HTML
• Saving in PPTX
• Saving in TXT
• Saving in CSV
• Saving E–books
• Saving in DjVu
• Saving to Microsoft SharePoint
• Saving an Image of the Page
Describes the procedure that saves your page without performing OCR on it and provides advice on
reducing the size of your images.
Saving: General
The File menu offers you a choice of different saving methods for the recognized text. You can also
send the recognized text to various applications.
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• File>Save FineReader Document
Saves the current ABBYY FineReader document. Both the recognized text and the page images are
saved.
• File>Save Document As
Saves the recognized text on your hard disk in a format of your choice.
• File>Send Document To
Opens the recognized text in an application of your choice. No information is saved on your drive.
• File>Save To Microsoft SharePoint (Corproate Edition only)
Saves the recognized text in a network location: on a website, on an intranet portal, or in an
electronic library.
• File>E–mail
Sends the image or recognized text via e–mail. In the dialog box that opens, select the desired
options for your e–mail attachment and click OK. A new e–mail message will be created with the
image or recognized text attached to it.
• File>Print
Prints the text or the images of the selected pages of the current ABBYY FineReader document.
Supported applications
• Microsoft Word 2000 (9.0), 2002 (10.0), 2003 (11.0), 2007 (12.0), and 2010 (14.0)
• Microsoft Excel 2000 (9.0), 2002 (10.0), 2003 (11.0), 2007 (12.0), and 2010 (14.0)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 (11.0) (with Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint 2007 formats), 2007 (12.0), and 2010 (14.0)
• Corel WordPerfect 10.0 (2002), 11.0 (2003), 12.0, 13.0, and 14.0
• Lotus Word Pro 97 and Millennium Edition
• OpenOffice.org 3.0, 3.1
• Adobe Acrobat/Reader (5.0 and later)
Note: To ensure better compatibility, we recommend installing the latest updates and upgrades
available for the above applications.
Document Properties
Document properties contain information about the document (the extended title of the document,
author, subject, key words, etc). Document properties can be used to sort your files. Additionally,
you can search for documents by their properties.
When recognizing PDF–files and a number of image types, ABBYY FineReader exports the
properties of the source document. You can change them later.
To add or modify document properties:
• Click Tools>Options…
• Click the Document tab, and, in the Document properties group, specify the title, author,
subject and key words.
Saving text in RTF, DOC, DOCX or ODT format
To save your text in RTF/DOC/DOCX/ODT:
• In the drop–down list on the main toolbar, choose a document layout saving mode.
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• Click File>Save Document As>Microsoft Word 97–2003 Document (to save to ODT format,
choose File>Save Document As>OpenOffice.org Writer Document) or the Save button on
the main toolbar. Click the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list.
If there is no suitable format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that
opens, select the desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the RTF/DOCX/ODT tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Retain layout
Depending on how you are planning to use your electronic document, select the best option below:
a. Exact copy
Produces a document that maintains the formatting of the original. This option is recommended for
documents with complex layouts, such as promotion booklets. Note, however, that this option limits
the ability to change the text and formatting of the output document.
b. Editable copy
Produces a document that nearly preserves the original format and text flow but allows easy editing.
c. Formatted text
Retains fonts, font sizes, and paragraphs, but does not retain the exact locations of the objects on
the page or the spacing. The resulting text will be left–aligned (right–to–left texts will be right–
aligned).
Note: Vertical texts will be changed to horizontal in this mode.
d. Plain text
Unlike the Formatted text mode, this mode does not retain formatting.
Default paper size
You can select the paper size to be used for saving in RTF, DOC, DOCX, or ODT format from the
Default paper size drop–down list.
Tip. To ensure the recognized text fits the paper size, select the Increase paper size to fit
content option. ABBYY FineReader will automatically select the most suitable paper size when
saving.
Text settings
• Keep headers and footers
Retains running titles (headers and footers) in the output text.
• Keep page breaks
Retains the original page arrangement.
• Keep line breaks
Retains the original arrangement into lines.
• Keep line numbers
Retains the original line numbering (if any). The line numbers will be saved in a separate field that
remains unchanged when you edit the text.
Note: This feature is only available if Exact copy or Editable copy is selected.
• Retain text and background colors
Retains the original color of the letters.
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Note: Word 6.0, 7.0, and 97 (8.0) have a limited text and background color palette,
therefore the original document colors may be replaced with the ones available in the Word
palette. Word 2000 (9.0) or later retains the colors of the source document in full.
Picture settings
Documents containing a large number of pictures are very large. To reduce the size of the file,
select the desired option in the Image quality group.
Tip:
• To change the picture saving parameters, click Custom…. In the Custom Picture Settings dialog
box, select the desired parameters and click OK.
• If you don't want to keep pictures in the recognized text, make sure the Keep pictures
option is clear.
Advanced
Some of the more advanced saving options become available by clicking the Advanced group.
• Highlight uncertain characters
Select this option to edit the recognized text in Microsoft Word rather than in the ABBYY FineReader
Text window. All uncertain characters will be highlighted in the Microsoft Word window.
Tip. You can change the color of uncertain characters on the View tab of the Options
dialog box (Tools>Options…).
• Enable compatibility with other word processors
Produces a document that can be opened and edited in earlier versions of Microsoft Word
and other word processing applications that support the RTF format.
Saving in XLSX
To save your text in XLS/XLSX:
• Click File>Save Document As>Microsoft Excel 97–2003 Document or the Save button on
the main toolbar. Click the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list.
If there is no suitable format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that
opens, select the desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the XLSX tab.
The following options are available:
• Ignore text outside tables
Saves only the tables and ignores the rest.
• Convert numeric values to numbers
Converts numbers into the "Numbers" format in the XLS file. Microsoft Excel may perform
arithmetical operations on cells of this format.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
Saving in PDF
To save your text in PDF:
• Click File>Save Document As>PDF Document or the Save button on the main toolbar. Click the
arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list. If there is no suitable
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format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that opens, select the
desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the PDF tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Default paper size
From the Default paper size drop–down list, choose the paper size to be used for saving in PDF
format.
Save mode
Depending on how you are planning to use your electronic document, select one of the best option
below:
• Text and pictures only
This option saves only the recognized text and the associated pictures. The page will be fully
searchable and the size of the PDF file will be small. The appearance of the resulting document may
slightly differ from the original.
• Text over the page image
This option saves the background and pictures of the original document and places the recognized
text over them. Usually, this PDF type requires more disk space than Text and pictures only. The
resulting PDF document is fully searchable. In some cases, the appearance of the resulting
document may slightly differ from the original.
• Text under the page image
This option saves the entire page image as a picture and places the recognized text underneath.
Use this option to create a fully searchable document that looks virtually the same as the original.
• Page image only
This option saves the exact image of the page. This type of PDF document will be virtually
indistinguishable from the original but the file will not be searchable.
Depending on the save mode you select, some of the following options will become available:
• Retain text and background colors
Select this option to retain the font color and background when saving in PDF.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
• Enable Tagged PDF (compatible with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and above)
Select this option to add PDF tags into the output PDF document.
Apart from text and pictures, PDF files can contain information about the document
structure such as logical parts, pictures, and tables. This information is encoded in PDF tags.
A PDF file equipped with PDF tags may be reflowed to fit different screen sizes and will
display well on handheld devices.
Important! If your recognized document contains text in Hebrew or Yiddish, you cannot
create a tagged PDF file.
• Use Mixed Raster Content
Select this option to retain the visual quality of the text and the pictures in a highly compressed
document.
• Create outline
Select this option if you wish to create a table of contents from the document headings.
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Image settings
The resulting file may be quite large if your text contains a lot of pictures or if you choose to save
the page image together with the recognized text. To adjust the size of the resulting file and the
quality of the pictures, select one of the options from the Image settings drop–down list:
• Best quality (source image resolution)
Select this option to retain the quality of the pictures or the page image. The original resolution of
the source image will be preserved.
• Balanced
Select this option to reduce the size of the PDF file while keeping the quality of the pictures or page
image at a reasonably high level.
• Compact size
Select this option to obtain a small–sized PDF file. The resolution of the pictures and page image
will be reduced to 150 dpi, affecting their quality.
• Custom…
Select this option to make your own picture and page image settings in the Custom Picture
Settings dialog box.
Tip. If you do not want to save pictures in the recognized text, make sure the Keep pictures
option is not selected.
Font settings
When saving texts to PDF, you can use either Adobe fonts or Windows fonts installed on your
machine. To specify the font set to be used, in the Font drop–down list, select one of the following:
• Use predefined fonts
The PDF file will use these Adobe fonts: Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New.
• Use Windows fonts
The PDF file will use the Windows fonts installed on your computer.
If you don't want to use embedded fonts in your PDF–document, make sure the Embed fonts
option is clear.
Security
You can use passwords to prevent your PDF document from unauthorized opening, printing or
editing:
• Click the PDF Security Settings… button and in the dialog box, select the desired security
settings.
Saving in PDF/A
Select the PDF/A saving format if you want to create a PDF–document with full–text search
capabilities that maintains visual quality or a document to be stored in an archive.
To save your text in PDF/A:
• Click File>Save Document As>PDF/A Document or the Save button on the main toolbar. Click
the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list. If there is no suitable
format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that opens, select the
desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the PDF/A tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
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Default paper size
From the Default paper size drop–down list, choose the paper size to be used for saving in PDF
format.
Save mode
Depending on how you are planning to use your electronic document, select one of the best option
below:
• Text and pictures only
This option saves only the recognized text and the associated pictures. The page will be fully
searchable and the size of the PDF file will be small. The appearance of the resulting document may
slightly differ from the original.
• Text over the page image
This option saves the background and pictures of the original document and places the recognized
text over them. Usually, this PDF type requires more disk space than Text and pictures only. The
resulting PDF document is fully searchable. In some cases, the appearance of the resulting
document may slightly differ from the original.
• Text under the page image
This option saves the entire page image as a picture and places the recognized text underneath.
Use this option to create a fully searchable document that looks virtually the same as the original.
• Page image only
This option saves the exact image of the page. This type of PDF document will be virtually
indistinguishable from the original but the file will not be searchable.
Depending on the save mode you select, some of the following options will become available:
• Retain text and background colors
Select this option to retain the font color and background when saving in PDF.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
• Enable Tagged PDF (compatible with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and above)
Select this option to add PDF tags into the output PDF document.
Apart from text and pictures, PDF files can contain information about the document
structure such as logical parts, pictures, and tables. This information is encoded in PDF tags.
A PDF file equipped with PDF tags may be reflowed to fit different screen sizes and will
display well on handheld devices.
Important! If your recognized document contains text in Hebrew or Yiddish, you cannot
create a tagged PDF file.
• Use Mixed Raster Content
Select this option to retain the visual quality of the text and the pictures in a highly compressed
document.
• Create outline
Select this option if you wish to create a table of contents from the document headings.
Picture settings
The resulting file may be quite large if your text contains a lot of pictures or if you choose to save
the page image together with the recognized text. To adjust the size of the resulting file and the
quality of the pictures, select one of the options from the Image settings drop–down list:
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• Best quality (source image resolution)
Select this option to retain the quality of the pictures or the page image. The original resolution of
the source image will be preserved.
• Balanced
Select this option to reduce the size of the PDF file while keeping the quality of the pictures or page
image at a reasonably high level.
• Compact size
Select this option to obtain a small–sized PDF file. The resolution of the pictures and page image
will be reduced to 150 dpi, affecting their quality.
• Custom…
Select this option to make your own picture and page image settings in the Custom Picture
Settings dialog box.
Tip. If you do not want to save pictures in the recognized text, make sure the Keep pictures
option is not selected.
PDF Security Settings
When you save a recognized text in PDF format, you can protect the contents of the PDF–document
with:
1. a password required to open the document
2. a password required to modify or print the document or copy information to another application
3. encoding
Passwords and other PDF security parameters are set in the PDF Security Settings dialog box.
To open it, click the PDF Security Settings… button located on the bottom of the Save>PDF tab
of the Options dialog box (Tools>Options…).
Password for opening the document
This password protects the PDF–document from unauthorized opening. The user will be able to
open the document only after entering the password specified by the author.
To set a password required to open the document:
1. Select Require password to open document.
2. Click .
3. In the Enter Document Open Password dialogue box, enter your password and confirm it.
The password you specified will be displayed as dots in the Document Open Password field of
the PDF Security Settings dialogue box.
Password for editing and printing the document
This password protects the PDF–document from unauthorized editing and printing as well as
copying information to another application. The user will be able to do the described action only
after entering the password specified by the author.
To set a password required to access file contents:
1. Select Restrict printing and editing the document and its security settings.
2. Click .
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3. In the Enter Permissions Password dialogue box, enter your password and confirm it.
The password you specified will be displayed as dots in the Permissions Password field of the
PDF Security Settings dialogue box.
Next, select the actions you want to allow the users to do with the PDF–document. These
restrictions are set in the Permissions settings group.
• Items in the Printing allowed drop–down list let you allow or prohibit document printing.
• Items in the Changes allowed drop–down list let you allow or prohibit document editing.
• If the Enable copying text, pictures, and other content option is selected, the user will be able
to copy the contents of the PDF–document (text and images) to Clipboard. If you want to prohibit
such actions, make sure this option is clear.
• If the Enable text access for screen reader devices option is selected, the user will be
able to make screenshots of the opened PDF–document. If you want to prohibit such
actions, make sure this option is clear. Note that this option is only available for PDF–
documents with128–bit encoding or higher.
Encoding level
Items in the Encryption level drop–down list let you set the encoding type for the password–
protected PDF–document.
Select one of the encoding levels:
• Low (40 bit) – compatible with Adobe Acrobat 3.0 and above sets a low 40–bit encoding
level based on the RC4 standard.
• High (128 bit) – compatible with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 and above sets a high 128–bit encoding
level based on the RC4 standard, but the users of earlier Adobe Acrobat versions will not be able to
open such PDF–document.
• High (128–bit AES) – compatible with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and above sets a high
128–bit encoding level based on the AES standard, but the users of earlier Adobe Acrobat
versions will not be able to open such PDF–document.
Saving in HTML
To save your text in HTML:
• In the drop–down list on the main toolbar, choose a document layout saving mode.
• Click File>Save Document As>HTML Document or the Save button on the main toolbar. Click
the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list. If there is no suitable
format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that opens, select the
desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the HTML tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Retain layout
Depending on how you are planning to use your electronic document, select the appropriate option:
• Flexible layout
Produces a document that maintains the formatting of the original. The output document can be
easily edited.
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• Formatted text
Retains fonts, font sizes, and paragraphs, but does not retain the exact locations of the objects on
the page or the spacing. The resulting text will be left–aligned. (Right–to–left texts will be right–
aligned.)
Note: Vertical texts will be changed to horizontal in this mode.
• Plain text
This mode does not retain formatting.
Use CSS
Select this option to save the file in HTML 4 format, which allows maintaining the document layout
by using a style table incorporated in the HTML–file.
Save mode
• Keep line breaks
Retains the original arrangement of lines.
• Retain text and background colors
Retains the original color of the letters.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
Picture settings
Documents containing a large number of pictures are very large. To reduce the size of the file,
select the desired option in the Image quality group.
Tip:
• To change the picture saving parameters, click Custom…. In the Custom Picture Settings dialog
box, select the desired parameters and click OK.
• If you don't want to keep pictures in the recognized text, make sure the Keep pictures
option is clear.
Character encoding
ABBYY FineReader detects the code page automatically. To change the code page or its type, select
the desired code page or code page type from the drop–down lists under Character encoding.
Book settings
Adjust Book settings if you are converting a printed book into electronic form. ABBYY FineReader
can automatically save book chapters into separate HTML files and recreate links to them in the
table of contents. You can also split the document into separate HTML files based on level 1 or level
2 headings.
Saving in PPTX
To save your text in PPTX:
• Click File>Save Document As>Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation or the Save button on the
main toolbar. Click the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list. If
there is no suitable format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that
opens, select the desired format.
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Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the PPTX tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Text settings
• Keep line breaks
Retains the original arrangement of lines.
• Wrap text
This option is only available if Keep line breaks is selected. All recognized text is fit entirely inside
the text block in the slide.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
Picture settings
Documents containing a large number of pictures are very large. To reduce the size of the file,
select the desired option in the Image quality group.
Tip:
• To change the picture saving parameters, click Custom…. In the Custom Picture Settings dialog
box, select the desired parameters and click OK.
• If you don't want to keep pictures in the recognized text, make sure the Keep pictures
option is clear.
Saving in TXT
To save your text in TXT:
• Click File>Save Document As>Text Document or the Save button on the main toolbar. Click
the arrow next to the Save button and choose a saving format from the list. If there is no suitable
format in the list, click Save to Other Formats…, and, in the dialog box that opens, select the
desired format.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the TXT tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Text settings
• Keep line breaks
Retains the original arrangement of lines.
• Insert page break character (#12) as page break
Saves the original page arrangement.
• Use blank line as paragraph separator
Separates the paragraphs with blank lines.
• Keep headers and footers
Preserves headers and footers in the output document.
Character encoding
ABBYY FineReader detects the code page automatically. To change the code page or its type, select
the desired code page or code page type from the drop–down lists under Character encoding.
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Saving in CSV
To save your text in CSV:
• Click the arrow next to the "Save" button on the main toolbar, or click File>Save Document
As>CSV Document.
Tip. Additional saving options are available in the Options dialog box: select Tools>Options…,
click the Save tab, and then click the CSV tab.
The saving options on this tab are grouped into the following categories:
Text settings
• Ignore text outside tables
Saves only the tables and ignores the rest.
• Insert page break character (#12) as page separator
Saves the original page arrangement.
• Field separator
Selects the character that will separate the data columns in the CSV file.
Character encoding
ABBYY FineReader detects the code page automatically. To change the code page or its type, select
the desired code page or code page type from the drop–down lists under Character encoding.
Saving E–books
To save your text in FB2 or EPUB:
• On the main toolbar, select Formatted Text from the drop–down list.
• Select File>Save Document As>FictionBook (FB2) or >Electronic Publication (EPUB).
Alternatively, you can use the saving button on the main toolbar. Click the arrow next to the saving
button and select a format. If you do not see the format you need on the list, select Save to Other
Formats… and select the desired format in the Save As dialog box.
Tip. You can select additional saving options on the FB2/EPUB tab of the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options…>Save>FB2/EPUB).
This tab offers the following options:
Document settings
Here you can specify detailed information about the document: its title, authors, and keywords. You
can also enter a comment in the Annotation field.
Picture settings
If your text contains very many pictures, the resulting file may be fairly large. The quality of the
pictures and the size of the resulting file can be tweaked using the options in the Picture settings
drop–down list.
Tip.
• To specify your own picture settings, select Custom…. In the Custom Picture Settings dialog
box, make the necessary settings and click OK.
• If you do not wish to retain any pictures, clear the Keep pictures option.
Retain layout
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Select a layout retention method depending on how you are intending to use the document:
• Formatted text
Preserves paragraphs, but does not preserve exact positions of objects and line spacing. You will
get continuous left–aligned text (texts printed in right–to left scripts will be right–aligned).
Note: Any vertical text will be displayed horizontally if this option is selected.
When saving to EPUB, you can additionally save fonts and font sizes by selecting Save
fonts and font sizes.
• Plain text
Does not preserve text formatting.
Use first page as cover
Selecting this option will place the first page of the document on the cover of the e–book.
Embed fonts
Selecting this option will embed the saved fonts into the e–book.
Saving in DjVu
To save your text in DjVu:
• Select File>Save Document As>DjVu Document. Alternatively, you can use the saving button
on the main toolbar. Click the arrow next to the saving button and select a format. If you do not see
the format you need on the list, select Save to Other Formats… and select the desired format in
the Save As dialog box.
Tip. You can select additional saving options on the DjVu tab of the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options…>Save>DjVu).
This tab offers the following options
Save mode
Select a saving method depending on how you are intending to use the document:
• Text under the page image
Saves the image of the page and places the recognized text in a separate invisible layer underneath
the image. Thus, you get a searchable DjVu document that looks almost exactly like the original.
• Page image only
Saves the image of the page. The output document will look almost exactly like the original,
but the text in the document will not be searchable.
Multiple layers
The DjVu format uses a special compression technique which separates a page image into layers
and applies different compression methods to each of them. By default, ABBYY FineReader will
automatically determine whether multi–layer compression must be used on a page (the Automatic
option is selected in the Multiple layers drop–down list). You can enable or disable multi–layer
compression for a document.
Picture settings
If your text contains very many pictures, the resulting file may be fairly large. The quality of the
pictures and the size of the resulting file can be tweaked using the options in the Picture settings
drop–down list.
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Tip. To specify your own picture settings, select Custom…. In the Custom Picture Settings
dialog box, make the necessary settings and click OK.
Saving to Microsoft SharePoint
(only for ABBYY FineReader Corporate Edition)
ABBYY FineReader allows you to save recognized text to a network resource — a website, an online
library, etc.
To save recognized text in Microsoft SharePoint:
1. On the File menu, click Save to Microsoft SharePoint…
2. In the dialog box that opens, specify the file name, the format, the network folder the file will be
saved to, and the file options.
3. Click Save.
Important!
• Make sure you have Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server Client Components installed
on your computer and the Web Client is running.
• When working with addresses like http://Server/share, it is impossible to replace a file already
existing in the network.
Saving an Image of the Page
To save one or more images:
1. Select the pages in the Pages window.
2. On the File menu, click Save Images…
3. In the Save Images As dialogue box, select the disk and folder to save the file to.
4. Select a graphical format you want to save the image in.
Important! If you want to save multiple pages to one file, choose the TIF format and
select Save as multi–page image file.
5. Specify the file name and click Save.
Tip. When saving, you can select the image format and compression method. Image compression
lets you decrease file size. Methods used for image compression differ by compression rate and
data losses. Two factors define the choice of compression method: the resulting image quality and
file size.
ABBYY FineReader lets you use the following compression methods:
• ZIP — provides for no data losses and is used for images containing large sections of one color. For
example, this method is used for screenshots and black–and–white images.
• JPEG — used for gray and color images, for example, photos. This method provides for a high–
density compression but leads to data losses and poorer image quality (blurred outlines and poor
color palette).
• CCITT Group 4 — provides for no data losses and is used for black–and–white images created in
graphical programs or scanned images. The CCITT Group 4 compression is a widespread
compression method applied to virtually all images.
• Packbits — provides for no data losses and is used for scanned black–and–white images.
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• LZW — provides for no data losses and is used for graphics and gray images.
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Advanced Features
Chapter Contents
• Working in Other Applications
• Using Area Templates
• Recognition with Training
• User Languages and Language Groups
• Group Work in a LAN
• ABBYY Hot Folder
Working in Other Applications
When you install ABBYY FineReader 11, you may choose to integrate the program with Microsoft
Office applications and Windows Explorer. Integration means that:
• An ABBYY FineReader 11 toolbar will appear in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft
Outlook.
• An ABBYY FineReader 11 option will appear in the supported format shortcut menu in Windows
Explorer.
You will be able to review and edit recognition results using your usual Microsoft Office tools. You
will also be able to launch quick tasks and custom automated tasks and open image and PDF files
directly from Windows Explorer.
To perform OCR on a document in a Microsoft Office application:
1. Click button on the ABBYY FineReader 11 bar.
2. In the dialog box, check the options and click Start.
ABBYY FineReader will be launched, and the recognized text will be opened in the current Microsoft
Office application when the OCR process is completed.
To open an image or PDF file from Windows Explorer:
1. Select the Windows Explorer file.
2. Select ABBYY FineReader 11>Open in ABBYY FineReader from the file's shortcut menu.
Note: This command will appear only if the program supports the selected file's format.
ABBYY FineReader 11 will launch and the selected image will be added to a new ABBYY FineReader
document. If ABBYY FineReader 11 is already running, the image will be added to the current
ABBYY FineReader document.
If the ABBYY FineReader 11 panel doesn't appear on the Microsoft Office application toolbar:
• Select ABBYY FineReader 11 from the application toolbar's shortcut menu.
If the ABBYY FineReader 11 option is not available on the shortcut menu, it means that ABBYY
FineReader 11 integration with Microsoft Office applications was disabled during custom
installation.
To enable integration:
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1. Go to Add or remove programs (Start>Settings>Control Panel).
Note: In Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows 7, this command is called Programs and
Features.
2. In the list of installed programs, select ABBYY FineReader 11 and click Change.
3. In the Custom Installation dialog box, select the appropriate components.
4. Follow the setup instructions.
Using Area Templates
If you are processing a large number of documents with an identical layout (e.g. forms or
questionnaires), analyzing the layout of every page will be very time consuming. To save time, you
can analyze only one document in a set of similar documents and save the detected areas as a
template. Then you can use this template for the other documents in the set.
To create an area template:
1. Open an image and either let the program analyze the layout automatically or draw the areas
manually.
2. On the Areas menu, click Save Area Template… In the saving dialog box, provide a name for
your template and click Save.
Important! To be able to use an area template, you must scan all the documents in the set using
the same resolution value.
Applying an area template:
1. In the Pages window, select the pages to which you wish to apply an area template.
2. On the Areas menu, click Load Area Template…
3. In the Open Area Template dialog box, select the desired area template (area template files have
the *.blk extension).
4. In the same dialog box, next to Apply to, select Selected pages to apply the template to the
selected pages.
Note: Select All pages to apply the template to all the pages in the current ABBYY
FineReader document.
5. Click the Open button.
Recognition with Training
The Read with training mode is useful for:
• Texts set in decorative fonts
• Texts that contain unusual characters (e.g. mathematical symbols)
• Long (more than a hundred pages) documents of low print quality
Use the Read with training mode
only
if one of the above applies. In other instances, the slight
increase in recognition quality will be outweighed by considerably longer processing times. For
details, see Paper Document Contains Decorative (Non–Standard) Fonts.
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• Training User Patterns
Provides instructions on training a user pattern, with additional information on training characters
and ligatures.
• Selecting a User Pattern
Provides instructions on selecting a user pattern, with some additional tips on how to make the right
choice.
• Editing a User Pattern
Provides instructions on viewing the characters in a user patter and changing the font effects.
Training User Patterns
1. Select Tools>Options… and click the Read tab.
2. Under Training, select Use built–in and user patterns or Use only user patterns.
3. Select the Read with training option.
4. Click the Pattern Editor… button.
Note: Pattern training is not supported for Asian languages.
5. In the Pattern Editor dialog box, click New…
6. In the Create Pattern dialog box, type in a name for your new pattern and click OK.
7. Close the Pattern Editor and the Options dialog boxes by clicking the OK button in each.
8. On the toolbar at the top of the Image window, click Read.
Now if ABBYY FineReader encounters an unknown character, this character will be displayed in a
Pattern Training dialog box.
9. Teach the program to read new characters and ligatures.
A ligature is a combination of two or three characters that are "glued together" (for
example, fi, fl, ffi, etc.) and are difficult for the program to separate. In fact, better results
can be obtained by treating them as single compound characters.
Note: Words printed in bold or italic type in your text or words in superscript/subscript may
be retained in the recognized text by selecting the corresponding options under Effects.
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To go back to a previously trained character, click the Back button. The frame will jump to
its previous location and the latest trained "character image – keyboard character"
correspondence will be removed from the pattern. The Back button navigates between
characters of one word and will not navigate between words.
Important!
• You can only train ABBYY FineReader to read the characters included in the alphabet of the
recognition language. To train the program to read characters that cannot be entered from the
keyboard, use a combination of two characters to denote these non–existent characters or copy the
desired character from the Insert Character dialog box (click to open the dialog box).
• Each pattern may contain up to 1,000 new characters. However, avoid creating too many ligatures,
as this may adversely affect OCR quality.
Selecting a User Pattern
ABBYY FineReader allows you to use patterns to improve OCR quality.
1. On the Tools menu, click Pattern Editor….
2. In the Pattern Editor dialog box, select the desired pattern from the list of available patterns and
click Set Active.
Some important points to remember:
1. Rather than differentiating between some similar yet different characters, ABBYY FineReader
recognizes them as one and the same character. For example, the straight ('), left (‘), and right (’)
quotes will be stored in a pattern as a single character (straight quote). This means that left and
right quotes will never be used in the recognized text, even if you try to train them.
2. For some character images, ABBYY FineReader will select the corresponding keyboard character
based on the surrounding context. For example, an image of a small circle will be recognized as the
letter O if there are letters immediately next to it and as the number 0 if there are digits next to it.
3. A pattern can only be used for documents that have the same font, font size, and resolution as the
document used to create the pattern.
4. To be able to use a pattern later, save it to a file. See Working with a FineReader Document for
details.
5. To recognize texts set in a different font, be sure to disable the user pattern by selecting the Use
only built–in patterns option in Tools>Options…>Read.
Editing a User Pattern
You may wish to edit your newly created pattern before launching the OCR process. An incorrectly
trained pattern may adversely affect OCR quality. A pattern should contain only whole characters or
ligatures. Characters with cut edges and characters with incorrect letter correspondences should be
removed from the pattern.
1. On the Tools menu, click Pattern Editor….
2. In the Pattern Editor dialog box, select the desired pattern and click the Edit… button.
3. In the User Pattern dialog box, select the desired character and click the Properties… button.
In the Properties dialog box, type the letter corresponding to the selected character and select the
desired font effect (bold, italic, superscript, or subscript).
To delete a character that has been trained incorrectly, select the character and click the Delete
button.
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User Languages and Language Groups
You can create and use your own recognition languages and language groups in addition to the
languages and groups included in the program.
• Creating an OCR Language
This is used to process texts that contain a lot of uncommon elements, such as code numbers.
• Creating a Language Group
This is used to recognize documents written in several languages that are not available from the
predefined language combinations.
Creating an OCR Language
When performing OCR on a document, ABBYY FineReader uses some information about the
language of the document (this language is to be selected from the Document Languages drop–
down list in the main window). If there are too many unusual abbreviations or words in the text,
the program may fail to recognize them correctly. If this is the case, you may wish to create your
own recognition language for this document.
1. On the Tools menu, click Language Editor…
2. In the Language Editor dialog box, click New…
3. In the New Language or Group dialog box, select Create a new language based on an
existing one and from the drop–down list below, select the desired language. Click OK.
4. In the Language Properties dialog box, specify the properties of the new OCR language.
a. Language name — Type a name for your OCR language in this field.
b. Source language — The language on which your new OCR language will be based.
(Displays the language you selected in the New Language or Group dialog box. Click the
arrow to the right to select a different language.)
c. Alphabet — Lists the characters of the alphabet of the source language. Click to add or
remove characters.
d. Dictionary — The dictionary that ABBYY FineReader will use to perform OCR on your
document and to check the recognized text. The following options are available:
• None
No dictionary will be used.
• Built–in dictionary
The dictionary supplied with ABBYY FineReader will be used.
• User dictionary
A user dictionary will be used. Click the Edit… button to add words to the dictionary
or to import an existing user dictionary or text file in Windows (ANSI) or Unicode
encoding. The words in the text file must be separated by spaces or other non–
alphabetic characters.
Note: The words from the user dictionary may occur in texts in the following
capitalizations: 1) lowercase only, 2) uppercase only, 3) first letter
capitalized, 4) as spelt in the user dictionary. The four possibilities are
summed up in the table below.
Word as spelt in the user
dictionary
Possible forms of the word in
texts
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abc
abc, Abc, ABC
Abc
abc, Abc, ABC
ABC
abc, Abc, ABC
aBc
aBc, abc, Abc, ABC
• Regular expression
You can use a regular expression to create a new language.
e. Advanced… — Opens the Advanced Language Properties dialog box, where you can
specify more advanced properties for your language:
• Non–letter characters that may occur at the beginning or at the end of words
• Standalone non–letter characters (punctuation marks, etc.)
• Characters to be ignored if they occur inside words
• Prohibited characters that may never occur in texts written in this language
• All the characters of the language to be recognized
• Allow Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, and abbreviations
5. Once you have finished creating your new language, select it as the recognition language for your
document.
By default, user languages are saved in the ABBYY FineReader document folder. You can alsosave
all your user languages and patterns to one file: Select Tools>Options…, click the Read tab, and
then click the Save to File… button.
Creating a Language Group
If you are going to use a particular language combination regularly, you may wish to group the
languages together for convenience.
1. On the Tools menu, click Language Editor….
2. In the Language Editor dialog box, click New….
3. In the New Language or Group dialog box, select Create a new group of languages and click
OK.
4. In the Language Group Properties dialog box, type a name for your new group and select the
desired languages.
Note: If you know that your text will not contain certain characters, you may wish to
explicitly specify these so–called prohibited characters. Specifying prohibited characters can
increase both recognition speed and quality. To specify prohibited characters, click the
Advanced… button in the Language Group Properties dialog box. In the Advanced
Language Group Properties dialog box, type the prohibited characters in the Prohibited
characters field.
5. Click OK.
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The newly created group will be added to the Document Languages drop–down list in the main
window.
By default, user language groups are saved in the ABBYY FineReader document folder. You can also
save all your user languages and patterns to one file: Select Tools>Options…, click the Read tab,
and then click the Save to File… button.
Tip. If you need a particular language combination for a document, you can also select the desired
languages directly, without creating a group.
1. From the Document Languages drop–down list, select More languages…
2. In the Language Editor dialog box, select Specify languages manually.
3. Select the desired languages and click OK.
Group Work in a LAN
ABBYY FineReader 11 provides tools and capabilities for processing documents over a local area
network (LAN).
• Processing the Same ABBYY FineReader Document on Several LAN Computers
• Using the Same User Languages and Dictionaries on Several Computers
Processing the Same ABBYY FineReader Document on Several
LAN Computers
When working with an ABBYY FineReader document over a network, you can use all the
functionality available in ABBYY FineReader except the Style Editor.
If an ABBYY FineReader document is to be used on several LAN computers simultaneously, the
following should be taken into account:
• A separate copy of ABBYY FineReader 11 should be installed on each computer.
• All the users must have full access to the ABBYY FineReader document.
• Each user may add pages to the document and modify them. If a user adds new pages and
launches the OCR process for them, the program will process the entire document anew. None of
the users will be able to edit the document while the processing is underway.
Once the page background changes to white, all the tools in the Text window will become
available.
• A document page that is being processed by one user is locked for the other users.
• Users may monitor page status in the Pages window, including the computer that is processing the
document, which user has opened a page, whether it has been recognized or edited, etc. To see the
status, switch into the Details view.
• The fonts that are used in the ABBYY FineReader document must be installed on each computer.
Otherwise, the recognized text may be displayed incorrectly.
Using the Same User Languages and Dictionaries on Several
Computers
In ABBYY FineReader 11, several users can use the same user languages and dictionaries
simultaneously. Several users can also add words to the same user dictionaries when working in the
LAN.
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To make user dictionaries and languages available to multiple users:
1. Create/open an ABBYY FineReader document and select desired scanning and OCR options for the
document.
2. Specify a folder where user dictionaries will be stored. This folder should be accessible to all network
users.
Note: By default, user dictionaries are stored in %Userprofile%\Application
Data\ABBYY\FineReader\11.00\UserDictionaries if your computer is running Windows
XP and in
%Userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\ABBYY\FineReader\11.00\UserDictionaries if your
computer is running Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7.
To specify the folder:
1. Select Tools>Options… and on the Advanced tab of the Options dialog box click the
User Dictionaries… button.
2. Click Browse… and select the folder.
3. Save your user patterns and languages to an *.fbt file:
1. Select Tools>Options… and click the Read tab in the Options dialog box.
2. Under User patterns and languages, click the Save to File… button.
3. In the Save Options dialog box, specify a name for the *.fbt file and a folder where the file
will be stored. This folder should be accessible to all network users.
4. Now when a user creates a new ABBYY FineReader document, they must load the user patterns and
languages from the *.fbt file saved at step 3 and specify the path to the folder created at step 2,
where the user dictionaries are stored.
Important! To be able to access the user dictionaries, patterns, and languages, users must
have read/write permissions for the folders where they are stored.
To view the list of available user languages in the Language Editor dialog box (select
Tools>Language Editor… and scroll to User languages).
When a user language is being used by several users, it is available as "read–only," and users will
not be able to change user language properties. However, words can be added to and deleted
from a user dictionary that is being used on several LAN computers.
When a dictionary is being edited by a user, it is available as "read–only" to other users, i.e. users
can use this dictionary to perform OCR and check spelling, but they cannot add or remove words.
Any changes a user makes to a user dictionary will become available to all users who have selected
the folder where this dictionary is stored. For the changes to come into effect, users will need to
restart ABBYY FineReader.
ABBYY Hot Folder
(ABBYY FineReader 11 Corporate Edition only)
ABBYY FineReader includes ABBYY Hot Folder, a scheduling agent which allows you to select a
folder with images and set the time for ABBYY FineReader to process the images contained in the
folder. For example, you can schedule your computer to recognize images overnight.
To process images in a folder automatically, create a processing task for that folder and specify the
image opening, OCR, and saving options. You must also specify how often ABBYY FineReader
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80
should check the folder for new images (at regular intervals or only once) and set the start time for
the task.
Important! At the time when the task should start, your computer must be turned on and you
must be logged on.
• Installing and Starting ABBYY Hot Folder
• Main Window
• Creating a Task
• Changing Task Properties
• Results Log
Installing and Starting ABBYY Hot Folder
By default, ABBYY Hot Folder is installed on your computer together with ABBYY FineReader 11. If,
during custom installation, you chose not to install ABBYY Hot Folder, you can install the application
later by following the instructions below:
1. On the Windows taskbar, click Start and then select Settings>Control Panel.
2. Double–click the Add or Remove Programs icon in the Control Panel window.
3. In the list of installed programs, select ABBYY FineReader 11 and then click Change.
4. In the Custom Setup dialog box, select ABBYY Hot Folder.
5. Follow the instructions of the setup program.
Starting ABBYY Hot Folder
There are several ways to start ABBYY Hot Folder:
• Select Start>All Programs>ABBYY FineReader 11 and then select ABBYY Hot Folder or
• In the ABBYY FineReader 11 main window, select Tools>Hot Folder… or
• Double–click the ABBYY Hot Folder icon on the Windows taskbar (this icon will appear once you
have set up at least one hot folder).
Main Window
Starting ABBYY Hot Folder opens the feature's main window. Use the buttons on the toolbar to set
up, copy, delete, and start folder processing tasks. You can also view detailed reports for each
folder.
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To create a new task, click the New button on the toolbar. The ABBYY Hot Folder Wizard will
guide you through setting up a hot folder.
Note:
• By default, task files are stored in %Userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
Data\ABBYY\HotFolder\11.00.
(In Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7 in
%Userprofile%\AppData\Local\ABBYY\HotFolder\11.00).
• The results will be saved to the folder you specified when setting up the task. In some cases, to
prevent the loss of already processed files, the program will create a subfolder in the specified folder
and save the subsequent recognition results to this subfolder. The subfolder will be named as
follows:
1. "Hot Folder DD.MM.YYYY HH–MM–SS"
A subfolder with this name is created when you re–run a task.
2. "File name(NUMBER)"
A subfolder with this name is created if a file with a particular name already exists in the
folder you specified.
• Depending on your version of the product, the number of pages that you can recognize within 30
days may be limited to 5,000.
To see messages notifying you that tasks have been completed, click on the toolbar.
A notification message will be displayed in a pop–up window above the Windows taskbar.
The ABBYY Hot Folder main window displays a list of set–up tasks. For each task, the full path to
the corresponding hot folder is displayed, together with its current status and the scheduled
processing time.
Tasks may have the following statuses:
Status
Description
Running…
The images in the folder are being processed.
Scheduled
You chose to check the hot folder for images only once at start time.
The start time is indicated in the Next Start Time column.
Stopped
Processing has been stopped by the user.
Completed
Finished processing images in this folder.
Error (see
log)
An error occurred when processing images in this folder. ABBYY
FineReader did not complete the processing tasks. To find out the cause
of the error, select the failed folder and click the View Log button on
the toolbar.
You can save any task for future use:
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82
1. Click the button on the toolbar and select Export…
2. Specify the name of the task and the path to the task.
3. Click Save.
To load a previously saved task:
1. Click the button on the toolbar and click Import…
2. Select the desired task and click Open.
Creating a Task
To create a task:
1. Either:
• click the New button in ABBYY Hot Folder or
• in the main ABBYY FineReader window, click the arrow next to the Save button and select
the Read Document Later… command
A new task will be displayed, with the steps Run once and Open FineReader document
already selected.
2. Select how often the task should be launched:
• Run once (the task will be launched once at the time you specify)
• Recurring (the task will be launched multiple times)
3. Specify the folder or document that contains the images to process.
• Open file from folder allows you to process images in local and network folders.
• Open file from FTP allows you to process images in folders on an FTP server.
If login and password are required in order to access the FTP folder, enter them in the FTP
login and FTP password fields respectively. If no login and password are required, select
the Anonymous connection option.
• Open file from Outlook allows you to process images in your mail box.
• Open FineReader document opens images stored in a FineReader document.
Under Documents, select one of the three options:
• Create a separate document for each file
• Create a separate document for each folder
• Create one document for all files
4. Click Analyze and read.
• Analyze and read analyzes an image and performs OCR.
• Analyze only analyzes an image.
• Automatically analyze areas detects text, picture, table, and other areas on the image.
• Use template loads a template with pre–configured areas.
• From the Language drop–down list, select the language of the texts to be recognized.
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Note: You can select more than one language.
• Click the All Document Settings… button to select more options on the Read tab of the
Options dialog box.
5. If required, select the Save FineReader document step.
6. Click Save document and specify the folder where to store the recognition results.
• From the Save as drop–down list, select a format for the output files.
Tip. You can have more than one saving step in order to save the results in multiple
formats.
• In the Folder field, provide the path to the output folder where the recognition results will
be stored.
• In the File name field, enter a name for the output files.
Note: The appearance of this dialog box will vary depending on the options selected at step
2.
7. Click OK.
The set–up task will be displayed in the ABBYY Hot Folder main window.
Note:
• By default, task files are stored in %Userprofile%\Local Settings\Application
Data\ABBYY\HotFolder\11.00.
(In Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7 in
%Userprofile%\AppData\Local\ABBYY\HotFolder\11.00).
• The results will be saved to the folder you specified when setting up the task. In some cases, to
prevent the loss of already processed files, the program will create a subfolder in the specified folder
and save the subsequent recognition results to this subfolder. The subfolder will be named as
follows:
1. "Hot Folder DD.MM.YYYY HH–MM–SS"
A subfolder with this name is created when you re–run a task.
2. "File name(NUMBER)"
A subfolder with this name is created if a file with a particular name already exists in the
folder you specified.
Important! For tasks to start, your computer must be turned on and you must be logged on.
Changing Task Properties
You can change the properties of an existing task.
To change the properties of an task
1. Stop the task whose properties you wish to change.
2. On the ABBYY Hot Folder toolbar, click the Modify button.
3. Make the necessary changes and click OK.
Results Log
Images in a hot folder are processed according to your defined settings. ABBYY Hot Folder keeps a
detailed log of all the operations.
The log file contains the following information:
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84
• The name of the task and its settings
• Errors and warnings (if any)
• Statistics (number of processed pages, number of errors and warnings, number of uncertain
characters)
To enable logging:
• On the ABBYY Hot Folder toolbar, click .
The log will be saved as a TXT file in the same folder that contains the files with recognized text.
To open a log file:
1. In the ABBYY Hot Folder main window, select the task you wish to inspect.
2. Click the View Log button on the toolbar.
Note: When you hover the mouse pointer over the status of the selected task, a log fragment is
displayed in a pop–up window.
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Appendix
Chapter Contents
• Glossary
• Supported Image Formats
• Supported Saving Formats
• Languages and Their Fonts
• Regular Expressions
• Shortcuts
Glossary
A
ABBYY Business Card Reader is a handy application that enables users to scan business cards,
capture the contact data, and export the captured contacts into various electronic formats. The
application can also handle scans and photos of business cards stored on users' computers.
ABBYY FineReader document is an object created by ABBYY FineReader to process a paper
document. It contains the images of the document pages, their recognized text (if any), and the
program settings.
ABBYY Hot Folder is a scheduling agent which allows you to select a folder with images and
specify the time for processing the images in this folder. At the specified time, the images from the
selected folder will be processed automatically.
ABBYY Screenshot Reader is an application that enables you to create screenshots and
recognize texts on them.
Abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase used to represent the whole. For example,
MS–DOS (for Microsoft Disk Operating System), UN (for United Nations), etc.
Activation is the process of obtaining a special code from ABBYY which allows the user to use
his/her copy of the software in full mode on a given computer.
Activation code is a code that is issued by ABBYY to each user of ABBYY FineReader 11 during
the activation procedure. An activation code is used to activate ABBYY FineReader on the computer
that generated the Product ID.
Active area is a selected area on an image that can be deleted, moved or modified. To make an
area active, click it. The frame enclosing an active area is bold and has small squares that can be
dragged to change the size of the area.
Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is a device that automatically feeds documents to a scanner.
A scanner with an ADF can scan multiple pages without manual intervention. ABBYY FineReader
supports multi–page documents.
ADRT® (Adaptive Document Recognition Technology) is a technology that increases the quality of
conversion of multi–page documents. For example, it can recognize such structural elements as
headings, headers and footers, footnotes, page numbering, and signatures.
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Area is a section of an image enclosed by a frame and containing a certain type of data. Before
performing OCR, ABBYY FineReader detects text, picture, table, and barcode areas in order to
determine which sections of the image should be recognized and in what order.
Area template is a template that contains information about the size and location of the areas for
a set of similar–looking documents.
B
Background picture area is an image area that contains a picture with text printed over it.
Barcode area is an image area that contains a barcode.
Brightness is a scanning parameter that indicates the contrast between the black and white areas
on an image. Setting the correct brightness value increases recognition quality.
C
Code page is a table that establishes correspondences between characters and their codes. Users
can select the characters they need from those available in a code page.
Color mode determines whether document colors are to be retained. Black–and–white images
produce smaller FineReader documents and are faster to process.
Compound word is a word made up of two or more stems (general meaning). In ABBYY
FineReader, a compound word is a word which is not in the dictionary but which the program
thinks may be made up of two or more dictionary words.
D
Document analysis is a process of identifying the elements of the logical structure of a document
and areas with different types of data. Document analysis can be carried out automatically or
manually.
Document open password is a password which prevents users from opening a PDF document
unless they type the password specified by the author.
Document options is the set of options that can be selected in the Options dialog box
(Tools>Options). Document options also include user languages and patterns. Document options
can be saved and then used in other ABBYY FineReader documents.
Dots per inch (dpi) is a measure of image resolution.
Driver is a software program that controls a computer peripheral (e.g., a scanner, a monitor, etc).
F
Font effects is the appearance of a font (i.e. bold, italic, underlined, strikethrough, subscript,
superscript, small caps).
I
Ignored characters are any non–letter characters found in words (e.g. syllable characters or
stress marks). These characters are ignored during the spell check.
Inverted image is an image with white characters against a dark background.
L
License Manager is a utility used for managing ABBYY FineReader licenses and activating ABBYY
FineReader 11 Corporate Edition.
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Ligature is a combination of two or more characters which are "glued together" (e.g. fi, fl, ffi).
These characters are difficult for ABBYY FineReader to separate. Treating them as a single
compound character improves OCR accuracy.
M
Monospaced font is a font (such as Courier New) in which all characters are equally spaced. For
better OCR results on monospaced fonts, select Tools>Options..., click the Document tab, and
select Typewriter under Document print type.
O
Omnifont system is a recognition system that recognizes characters set in any font and font size
without prior training.
Optional hyphen is a hyphen (¬) that indicates exactly where a word or word combination should
be split if it occurs at the end of a line (e.g. "autoformat" should be split into "auto–
format"). ABBYY FineReader replaces all hyphens found in dictionary words with optional hyphens.
P
Page layout is the arrangement of text, tables, pictures, paragraphs, and columns on a page. The
fonts, font sizes, font colors, text background, and text orientation are also part of the page layout.
Page layout analysis is the process of detecting areas on a page image. Areas can be of six
types: text, picture, table, barcode, background picture, and recognition area. Page layout analysis
can be performed automatically when clicking the Read button, or manually by the user prior to
OCR.
Paradigm is the set of all grammatical forms of a word.
Pattern is a set of pairs of type "character image – actual character."
PDF security settings are restrictions that prevent a PDF document from being opened, edited,
copied or printed. These settings include Document Open Passwords, Permissions Passwords, and
encryption levels.
Permissions Password is a password which prevents other users from printing and editing a PDF
document unless they type the password specified by the author. If some security settings are
selected for the document, other users will not be able to change these settings until they type the
password.
Picture area is an image area that contains a picture. This type of area may enclose an actual
picture or any other object that should be displayed as a picture (e.g. a section of text).
Primary form is the "dictionary" form of a word (headwords of dictionary entries are usually given
in heir primary forms).
Print type is a parameter reflecting how the source text was printed (on a laser printer or a similar
device, on a typewriter, etc.). For laser–printed texts, select Auto; for typewritten texts, select
Typewriter; for faxes, select Fax.
Product ID is a parameter that is automatically generated on the basis of the hardware
configuration when activating ABBYY FineReader on a given computer.
Prohibited characters — If certain characters will never occur in a text to be recognized, they
may be included in a list of prohibited characters. Specifying prohibited characters increases the
speed and quality of OCR.
R
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Resolution is a scanning parameter measured in dots per inch (dpi). Resolution of 300 dpi should
be used for texts set in 10 pt fonts and larger, 400 to 600 dpi is preferable for texts of smaller font
sizes (9 pt and less).
Recognition area is an image area that ABBYY FineReader should analyze automatically.
Back to Top
S
Scanner is a device for inputting images into a computer.
Scanning mode is a scanning parameter that determines whether an image must be scanned in
black and white, grayscale, or color.
Separators are symbols that can separate words (e.g. /, \, dash) and that are separated by spaces
from the words themselves.
Support ID is a unique identifier of a serial number with information about the license and the
computer on which it is used. A support ID provides additional protection and is checked by the
technical support service before providing technical support.
T
Table area is an image area that contains data in table form. When the application reads this type
of area, it draws vertical and horizontal separators inside the area to form a table. This area is then
rendered as a table in the output text.
Tagged PDF is a PDF document which contains information about the document structure, such as
its logical parts, pictures, and tables. The structure of a document is encoded in PDF tags. A PDF
file with such tags may be reflowed to fit different screen sizes and will display well on handheld
devices.
Task Manager is an ABBYY FineReader feature that allows you to run an automated task, create
and modify automated tasks, and delete custom automated tasks which you no longer use.
Text area is an image area that contains text. Note that text areas should only contain single–
column text.
Training is establishing a correspondence between a character image and the character itself. (For
details, see the Recognition with Training section.)
U
Uncertain characters are characters that may have been recognized by the program incorrectly.
ABBYY FineReader highlights uncertain characters.
Uncertain words are words containing one or more uncertain characters.
Unicode is a standard developed by the Unicode Consortium (Unicode, Inc.). The standard is a 16–
bit international encoding system for processing texts. The standard is easily extended. The
Unicode Standard determines the character encoding, the properties, and procedures used in
processing texts written in a certain language.
Supported Image Formats
The table below lists the image formats supported in ABBYY FineReader 11.
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Format
Extension
Open
Save
Bitmap
bmp, dib, rle
+
+
Bitmap, Black and White
bmp, dib, rle
+
+
Bitmap, Gray
bmp, dib, rle
+
+
Bitmap, Color
bmp, dib, rle
+
+
DCX
dcx
+
+
DCX, Black and White
dcx
+
+
DCX, Gray
dcx
+
+
DCX, Color
dcx
+
+
JPEG 2000
jp2, j2k
+
+
JPEG 2000, Gray
jp2, j2k
+
+
JPEG 2000, Color
jp2, j2k
+
+
JPEG
jpg, jpeg
+
+
JPEG, Gray
jpg, jpeg
+
+
JPEG, Color
jpg, jpeg
+
+
JBIG2
jb2, jbig2
+
+
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PCX
pcx
+
+
PCX, Black and White
pcx
+
+
PCX, Gray
pcx
+
+
PCX, Color
pcx
+
+
PNG
png
+
+
PNG, Black and White
png
+
+
PNG, Gray
png
+
+
PNG, Color
png
+
+
TIFF
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Black and White, Unpacked
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Black and White, Packbits
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Black and White, CCITT Group 4
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Black and White, ZIP compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Black and White, LZW compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Gray, Unpacked
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Gray, Packbits
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Gray, JPEG compression
tif, tiff
+
+
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TIFF, Gray, ZIP compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Gray, LZW compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Color, Unpacked
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Color, Packbits
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Color, JPEG compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Color, ZIP compression
tif, tiff
+
+
TIFF, Color, LZW compression
tif, tiff
+
+
PDF
pdf
+
+
PDF v. 1.6 or earlier
pdf
+
+
DjVu
djvu, djv
+
+
GIF
gif
+
–
XPS (Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 required)
xps
+
–
Windows Media Photo
wdp, wmp
+
–
Supported Saving Formats
ABBYY FineReader can save recognized texts in any of the following formats:
• Microsoft Word Document (*.doc)
• Microsoft Office Word 2007 Document (*.docx)
• Rich Text Format (*.rtf)
• OpenDocument Text (*.odt)
• Adobe Acrobat Document (*.pdf)
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• HTML Document (*.htm)
• FB2 Document (*.fb2)
• EPUB Document (*.epub)
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 Presentation (*.pptx)
• Microsoft Office Excel Comma–Separated Values File (*.csv)
• Text Document (*.txt)
ABBYY FineReader supports Windows, DOS, Mac, and ISO codepages and Unicode encoding.
• Microsoft Excel Worksheet (*.xls)
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook (*.xlsx)
• PDF/A (*.pdf)
• DjVu Document (*.djvu)
Languages and Their Fonts
Language
Font
Abkhaz
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Adyghian
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Agul
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Altai
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Arabic
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Armenian (Eastern, Western, Grabar)
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Avar
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Bashkir
Arial Unicode MS(*), Palatino Linotype
Chechen
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Chinese (Simplified), Chinese
(Traditional)
Arial Unicode MS(*), SimSun fonts
For example: SimSun (Founder Extended), SimSun–18030,
NSimSun.
Simhei, YouYuan, PMingLiU, MingLiU, Ming(for–ISO10646),
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STSong
Chuvash
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Chukchee
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Dargwa
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Ingush
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Gagauz
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Hausa
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Hebrew
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Japanese
Arial Unicode MS(*), SimSun fonts
For example: SimSun (Founder Extended), SimSun–18030,
NSimSun.
Simhei, YouYuan, PMingLiU, MingLiU, Ming(for–ISO10646),
STSong
Kabardian
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Khakass
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Khanty
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Korean, Korean (Hangul)
Arial Unicode MS(*), SimSun fonts
For example: SimSun (Founder Extended), SimSun–18030,
NSimSun.
Simhei, YouYuan, PMingLiU, MingLiU, Ming(for–ISO10646),
STSong
Koryak
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Lak
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Lezgi
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
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Mansi
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Mari
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Ossetian
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Russian (old spelling)
Arial Unicode MS(*), Palatino Linotype
Tabasaran
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Tajik
Arial Unicode MS(*), Palatino Linotype
Thai
Arial Unicode MS(*), Aharoni, David, Levenim mt, Miriam,
Narkisim, Rod
Udmurt
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Vietnamese
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Zulu
Arial Unicode MS(*), Lucida Sans Unicode
Yakut
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Yiddish
Arial Unicode MS(*)
Where to find/supplied with
(*) Microsoft Office 2000 or later
Regular Expressions
The table below lists the regular expressions that can be used to create a new language.
Item name
Conventional regular
expression symbol Usage examples and explanations
Any Character
.
c.t — denotes "cat," "cot," etc.
Character from
[]
[b–d]ell — denotes "bell," "cell," "dell," etc.
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Group
[ty]ell — denotes "tell" and "yell"
Character not
from Group
[^]
[^y]ell — denotes "dell," "cell," "tell," but
forbids "yell"
[^n–s]ell — denotes "bell," "cell," but forbids
"nell," "oell," "pell," "qell," "rell," and "sell"
Or
|
c(a|u)t — denotes "cat" and "cut"
0 or More
Matches
*
10* — denotes numbers 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc.
1 or More
Matches
+
10+ — allows numbers 10, 100, 1000, etc., but
forbids 1
Letter or Digit
[0–9a–zA–Zа–яА–Я]
[0–9a–zA–Zа–яА–Я] — allows any single
character
[0–9a–zA–Zа–яА–Я]+ — allows any word
Capital Latin
Letter
[A–Z]
Small Latin
Letter
[a–z]
Capital Cyrillic
letter
[А–Я]
Small Cyrillic
letter
[а–я]
Digit
[0–9]
Space
\s
@
Reserved.
Note:
1. To use a regular expression symbol as a normal character, precede it with a backslash. For
example, [t–v]x+ stands for tx, txx, txx, etc., ux, uxx, etc., but \[t–v\]x+ stands for [t–v]x, [t–v]xx,
[t–v]xxx, etc.
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2. To group regular expression elements, use brackets. For example, (a|b)+|c stands for c or any
combinations like abbbaaabbb, ababab, etc. (a word of any non–zero length in which there may be
any number of a's and b's in any order), while a|b+|c stands for a, c, and b, bb, bbb, etc.
Examples
Suppose you are recognizing a table with three columns: the first for the birth date, the second for
the name, and the third for the e–mail address. You can create new languages, Data and Address,
and specify the follwoing regular expressions for them.
Regular expression for dates:
The number denoting a day may consist of one digit (1, 2, etc.) or two digits (02, 12), but it cannot
be zero (00 or 0). The regular expression for the day should then look like this: ((|0)[1–
9])|([1|2][0–9])|(30)|(31).
The regular expression for the month should look like this: ((|0)[1–9])|(10)|(11)|(12).
The regular expression for the year should look like this: ([19][0–9][0–9]|([0–9][0–9])|([20][0–
9][0–9]|([0–9][0–9]).
Now all we need to do is combine all this together and separate the numbers by period (e.g.
1.03.1999). The period is a regular expression symbol, so you must put a backslash (\) before it.
The regular expression for the full date should then look like this:
((|0)[1–9])|([1|2][0–9])|(30)|(31)\.((|0)[1–9])|(10)|(11)|(12)\.((19)[0–9][0–9])|([0–9][0–
9])|([20][0–9][0–9]|([0–9][0–9])
Regular expression for e–mail addresses:
[a–zA–Z0–9_\–\.]+\@[a–z0–9\.\–]+
Shortcut Keys
ABBYY FineReader 11 offers the following keyboard shortcuts for the most commonly used
commands. You can also create your own keyboard shortcuts.
To create a shortcut:
1. Click Tools>Customize…. The Customize Toolbars and Shortcuts dialog box will open.
2. On the Keyboard Shortcuts tab, in the Categories field, select a category.
3. In the Commands field, select the command for which you want to create keyboard shortcut or
whose shortcut you want to change.
4. Click inside the Press new shortcut key field and then, on your keyboard, press the keys you
want to use as a shortcut for the selected command.
5. Click Assign. The keys you specified will be added into the Current shortcut box.
6. Click OK to save the changes.
7. To return shortcuts to their default values, click Reset (for a selected command category) or Reset
All (for all shortcuts).
The File Menu
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Command
Shortcut
Scan Pages…
CTRL+K
Open PDF File/Image…
CTRL+O
New FineReader Document
CTRL+N
Open FineReader Document…
CTRL+SHIFT+N
Save Document As
CTRL+S
Save Images…
CTRL+ALT+S
Send FineReader Document by e–mail
CTRL+M
Send page images by e–mail
CTRL+ALT+M
Print Image
CTRL+ALT+P
Print Text
CTRL+P
The Edit Menu
Command
Shortcut
Undo
CTRL+Z
Redo
CTRL+ENTER
Cut
CTRL+X
Copy
CTRL+C
CTRL+INSERT
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Paste
CTRL+V
SHIFT+INSERT
Clear
DELETE
Select All
CTRL+A
Find…
CTRL+F
Find Next
F3
Replace…
CTRL+H
The View Menu
Command
Shortcut
Show Pages Window
F5
Show Page Image Only
F6
Show Page Image and Page Text
F7
Show Page Text Only
F8
Show Zoom Window
CTRL+F5
Next Window
CTRL+TAB
Previous Window
CTRL+SHIFT+TAB
Properties...
ALT+ENTER
The Document Menu
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Command
Shortcut
Read
CTRL+SHIFT+R
Analyze Layout
CTRL+SHIFT+E
Go to Next Page
ALT+DOWN ARROW
PAGE DOWN
Go to Previous Page
ALT+UP ARROW
PAGE UP
Go to Page…
CTRL+G
Close Current Page
CTRL+F4
The Page Menu
Command
Shortcut
Read Page
CTRL+R
Analyze Page Layout
CTRL+E
Edit Page Image…
CTRL+SHIFT+C
Delete All Areas and Text
CTRL+DELETE
Delete Text
CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE
Page Properties…
ALT+ENTER
The Areas Menu
Command
Shortcut
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Read Area
CTRL+SHIFT+B
Change Area Type to Recognition Area
CTRL+1
Change Area Type to Text
CTRL+2
Change Area Type to Table
CTRL+3
Change Area Type to Picture
CTRL+4
Change Area Type to Barcode
CTRL+5
Change Area Type to Background Picture
CTRL+6
The Tools Menu
Command
Shortcut
Task Manager…
CTRL+T
Hot Folder…
CTRL+SHIFT+H
View Dictionaries…
CTRL+ALT+D
Language Editor…
CTRL+SHIFT+L
Pattern Editor…
CTRL+SHIFT+A
Verification…
CTRL+F7
Next Error
SHIFT+F4
Previous Error
SHIFT+F5
Options…
CTRL+SHIFT+O
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The Help Menu
Command
Shortcut
ABBYY FineReader 11 Help
F1
General
Command
Shortcut
Mark the selected text fragment bold
CTRL+B
Mark the selected text fragment
italic
CTRL+I
Underline the selected text fragment
CTRL+U
Select table cells
Arrow keys
Select the Pages window
ALT+1
Select the Image window
ALT+2
Select the Text window
ALT+3
Select the Zoom window
ALT+4
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How to Buy an ABBYY Product
You can buy ABBYY products from our online store or from our partners (see http://www.abbyy.com
for the list of ABBYY partners).
For detailed information About ABBYY products, please
• visit our website at http://www.abbyy.com
• send us an e–mail to sales@abbyy.com
• contact the nearest ABBYY office
Additional fonts for various languages can be purchased from www.paratype.com/shop/.
About ABBYY
ABBYY is one of the world's leading developers that offers software and services for optical
character recognition, document capture, linguistics, and translation.
ABBYY's products include:
For individual home and office users:
• ABBYY FineReader, an optical character recognition system
• ABBYY Lingvo, electronic dictionaries for desktop computers and mobile devices
• ABBYY PDF Transformer, a document conversion application that converts PDF files into editable
formats and saves documents in PDF
For enterprises:
• ABBYY FlexiCapture, an all–in–one data capture solution
• ABBYY Recognition Server, a server solution that automates optical character recognition and PDF
conversion processes
• ABBYY FineReader Bank, a data capture solution for processing payment orders and other banking
documents
For developers:
• ABBYY FineReader Engine, a development kit for integrating OCR and document conversion
technologies into Windows, Linux, MacOS, and FreeBSD applications
• ABBYY FlexiCapture Engine, a development kit for integrating data capture and document
processing technologies into Windows applications
• ABBYY Mobile OCR SDK, a development kit for creating compact text recognition applications for
various mobile platforms.
Throughout the world, organizations working with printed documents use ABBYY software to
automate labor–intensive work and optimize business processes. ABBYY's products are used in
large–scale government projects, for example by Australian Taxation Office, Tax Inspection of the
republic of Latvia, Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Education of Ukraine
and Government of Montgomery County, USA.
Technologies developed by ABBYY are licensed by the following companies: BancTec, Canon,
EMC/Captiva, Hewlett–Packard, Microsoft, NewSoft, Notable Solutions, Samsung Electronics. Optical
character recognition software is bundled with equipment of world's leading manufacturers: BenQ,
Epson, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, Microtek, Panasonic, Plustek, Toshiba, Xerox and other.
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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The company's headquarters are located in Moscow, and regional offices are situated in Germany,
USA, Japan, Ukraine and Taiwan.
For more information on ABBYY and its products, please visit www.abbyy.com.
ABBYY Offices and Technical Support Contacts
Western Europe
ABBYY Europe GmbH
Phone: +49 89 511 159 0
Fax: +49 89 511 159 59
Address: Elsenheimerstrasse 49, 80687 Munich,
Germany
Sales e–mail: sales_eu@abbyy.com
Support e–mail: support_eu@abbyy.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.de
http://www.france.abbyy.com
http://www.abbyy.com
USA, Mexico and Central America
ABBYY USA
Phone: +1 408 457 9777
Fax: +1 408 457 9778
Address: 880 North McCarthy Blvd., Suite #220,
Milpitas, CA 95035, USA
Sales e–mail: sales@abbyyusa.com
Support portal: www.abbyyusa.com/retail_support
Web: http://www.abbyy.com
Canada
ABBYY Canada
Phone: +1 408 457 9777
Fax: +1 408 457 9778
Address: 555 Legget Dr., Suite 304
Kanata, Ontario K2k 2X3, Canada
Sales e–mail: info_canada@abbyyusa.com
Support e–mail: support_canada@abbyyusa.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.com
Russia, Belarus, Central Asia and
Caucasus
ABBYY Russia
Phone: +7 495 783 3700
Fax: +7 495 783 2663
Address: P.O. Box 32, Moscow 127273, Russia
Sales e–mail: sales@abbyy.com
Support e–mail: support@abbyy.ru
Web: http://www.abbyy.ru
http://www.abbyy.com
Eastern Europe and the
Mediterranean
ABBYY Ukraine
Phone: +380 44 490 9999
Fax: +380 44 490 9461
Address: P.O. Box 23, 02002 Kiev, Ukraine
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Sales e–mail: sales@abbyy.ua
Support phone: +380 44 490 9463
Support e–mail: support@abbyy.ua
Web: http://www.abbyy.ua
Africa, Asia, South America,
Greece and Baltic countries
ABBYY 3A
Phone: +7 495 783 3700
Fax: +7 495 783 2663
Address: P.O. Box 32, Moscow 127273, Russia
Sales e–mail: sales_3A@abbyy.com
Support e–mail: support@abbyy.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.cn
http://www.abbyy.com.br
http://latam.abbyy.com
Taiwan
ABBYY Taiwan
Address: 3F., No.156, Jiankang Rd., Songshan Dist.,
Taipei City 105, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Sales e–mail: info_taiwan@abbyyusa.com
Support e–mail: support_taiwan@abbyyusa.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.com
Japan
ABBYY Japan
Address: 658–1 Tsuruma, Machida–shi, Tokyo 194–
0004, Japan
Sales e–mail: info_japan@abbyyusa.com
Support e–mail: support_japan@abbyyusa.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.com
Australia and New Zealand
ABBYY Australia
Address: Citigroup Building, level 39, 2 Park Street,
Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia
Sales e–mail: sales_au@abbyy.com
Support e–mail: support@abbyy.com
Web: http://www.abbyy.com
All other regions
ABBYY Russia
Phone: +7 495 783 3700
Fax: +7 495 783 2663
Address: P.O. Box 32, Moscow 127273, Russia
Sales e–mail: sales@abbyy.com
Support e–mail: support@abbyy.ru
Web: http://www.abbyy.ru
http://www.abbyy.com
ABBYY FineReader 11 User’s Guide
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Activating and Registering ABBYY FineReader
Software piracy hurts software manufacturers and end users alike – using an illegal product is never
safe. Legal software ensures that a third party cannot introduce detrimental code changes. ABBYY
makes every effort to protect its intellectual property rights and the security of its customers
through a variety of anti–piracy measures.
ABBYY software products include special protection technology which prevents unauthorized use by
those who have not entered into a license agreement with ABBYY.
To be able to run ABBYY FineReader in full mode, you need to activate it.
Registration is optional and provides a number of benefits.
Chapter Contents
• ABBYY FineReader Activation
• ABBYY FineReader Registration
• Privacy Policy
ABBYY FineReader Activation
After you install ABBYY FineReader 11, you need to activate the program to be able to run it in full
mode. In restricted mode, some of the features will be disabled, depending on your version and
region.
Activation takes just a few minutes. An Activation Wizard will help you send the data required to
activate your copy to ABBYY, and you will receive an activation code in return.
Important! Some versions of the product are activated automatically over the Internet and do not
require additional confirmation by the user.
To activate ABBYY FineReader:
1. On the Help menu, click Activate ABBYY FineReader….
2. Follow the instructions of the Activation Wizard.
If you choose to activate your copy by phone or e–mail, simply enter the activation code or
provide the path to the activation file in the corresponding dialog box of the Activation
Wizard.
Once you have activated your copy, ABBYY FineReader will run on this computer in full mode.
More about activation methods:
• Over the Internet
Activation is carried out automatically and takes only seconds to complete. An active Internet
connection is required for this method.
• By e–mail
The program will ask you to send an e–mail message to ABBYY with the information required to
activate ABBYY FineReader. The e–mail message will be generated automatically. You will receive an
activation code in reply.
Important! Be sure not to alter the subject field and the body of the generated e–mail
message to ensure a quick reply from the e–mail robot.
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• By phone
Select your country in the corresponding dialog box of the Activation Wizard. The wizard will show
the telephone numbers of the nearest ABBYY office or ABBYY partner in your area. Communicate
the serial number and the Product ID displayed in the Activation Wizard to an ABBYY technical
support manager.
Important! Activation codes may be very long and may take some time to dictate over the
phone.
• Subscription
Activation is carried out automatically if you choose to renew your license.
The Activation Wizard creates a unique Product ID. This parameter is created on the basis of your
computer configuration data as of the moment of activation. The parameter does not include any
personal information, information about the computer model, installed software, user settings, or
stored data. In addition to the Product ID, the serial number, product name and version, and the
interface language of ABBYY FineReader are transferred to the server during activation. This
information is required in order to select the appropriate language and content of the activation
reply message and will not be used for any other purposes.
You can re–install ABBYY FineReader on the computer on which it has been activated as often as
you wish, without activating it again. The Activation Wizard detects and tolerates changes to your
PC configuration. Minor upgrades will not require re–activation. If major upgrades are made to the
system (e.g. if you format the hard disk or re–install the operating system), you may need to obtain
a new activation code.
Once you activate ABBYY FineReader 11 Corporate Edition, you will also get access to ABBYY
Business Card Reader, a handy application that enables you to scan business cards, capture the
contact data, and export the captured contacts into various electronic formats.
ABBYY FineReader Registration
We recommend you to register your copy of ABBYY FineReader 11.
Registration benefits:
1. Free technical support
2. E–mail notifications about new ABBYY releases
3. BONUS APPLICATION! When you register ABBYY FineReader 11 Professional Edition, you get ABBYY
Screenshot Reader for free. ABBYY Screenshot Reader creates screenshots of any part of your
screen and performs OCR on areas that contain text.*
Note: Registration may be obligatory for some of the freeware versions of the product. If you have
obtained a freeware version which requires registration, the product will not function unless you
register your copy.
To register your copy of ABBYY FineReader, do one of the following:
• Fill out the registration form when activating the program.
Note: If you do not register the program during activation, you can always do it later.
• On the Help menu, click Register Now… and fill out the registration form.
• Register your copy on the ABBYY website.
• Contact the nearest ABBYY office.
__________________________
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* In ABBYY FineReader 11 Corporate Edition, ABBYY Screenshot Reader is already available and
does not require registration.
Privacy Policy
You agree to transfer your personal data to ABBYY during registration of the ABBYY FineReader 11
software. You also agree that ABBYY may collect, process, and use the data received from you in
accordance with terms of the License Agreement. Any personal information provided by you will be
used only within the ABBYY group of companies and will not be disclosed to any third party unless
ABBYY is required to so under applicable law or by the License Agreement.
ABBYY may send you e–mail messages containing product news, pricing information, special offers,
and other company and product information only if you agree to receive such information from
ABBYY by selecting the corresponding option in the product registration dialog box. You can delete
your e–mail address from the mailing list at any time by contacting ABBYY.
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Technical Support
If you have any questions regarding the use of ABBYY FineReader, please consult all the
documentation you have (the User's Guide and Help) before contacting our technical support
service. You may also wish to browse the technical support section on the ABBYY website at
www.abbyy.com/support — you may find the answer to your question there.
Our technical support service experts will need the following information to answer your question
competently:
• Your first and last name
• The name of your company or organization (if applicable)
• Your telephone number (or fax or e–mail)
• The serial number of your ABBYY FineReader package or support ID. Support ID is a unique
identifier of the serial number, which contains information about your license and computer. To
view your support ID, select Help>About…>License Info
• Build number (see Help>About… and look up the Build field)
• A general description of your problem and the full text of the error message (if there was one)
• The type of your computer and processor
• The version of your Windows operating system
• Any other information you consider important
You can gather some of the above information automatically:
1. Select Help>About…
2. In the About ABBYY FineReader dialog box, click the System Info… button.
A dialog box will open displaying some of the above information.
Important! Only registered users are eligible for free technical support. You can register your copy
of the application on the ABBYY website or by selecting Help>Register Now…

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