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New ABBYY FineReader 10

Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 18th January, 2010

A new version of FineReader has just been released and the basic OCR accuracy seems to be much better than the previous version 9 (which was actually much worse than version 8 - we carried on using 8 because 9 was so bad). Here's a screenshot of a PDF image that was recognised using FineReader 9:

1 . L J n e m i c a i R e a c t i o n s • When chemicals are mixed together, they LIW i i u i a i w a p ltati. I I U W L V U , WHUII a chemical reaction does take place, there may be one, or more, of the following: - CI LU1UUL VllClll^L - the appearance of a s o l i d (precipitate) - a f i z z i n g as a gas forms - a temperature change

As you can see (and also hear, if you are using a screen reader), the recognition is pretty poor. Try right-clicking on the image and reading the alt text to see how bad it is.

Here's the same PDF page, opened and recognised using FineReader 10:

1. Chemical Reactions • When chemicals are mixed together, they do not always react. However, when a chemical reaction does take place, there may be one, or more, of the following: - a colour change - the appearance of a solid (precipitate) - a fizzing as a gas forms - a temperature change

Much better! I've not had time to explore FineReader 10 in detail, but the user interface also seems cleaner and more intuitive. So all in all if you're struggling with FineReader 9 it might be worth upgrading to version 10.

You can try a 15 day trial copy from Abbyy and buy the program for about £69 from suppliers like iANSYST.

Happy scanning!

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