In my position as a paralegal, it is often necessary to scan documents and convert them into text files with OCR (optical character recognition) technology. Previously I used Omnipage by Scansoft, but grew frustrated with the complicated program, inconsistent results and time-intensive retyping involved. I should confess that Omnipage was a difficult program for me to understand, but I understand many people have had good success with it. I then switched to TextBridge Pro 98 also by Scansoft, and it was a very impressive change-over.

Scansoft introduced TextBridge Pro Millennium in early 2000, which is Windows 2000 compatible. TextBridge Pro Millennium is also compatible with Windows 95, 98 and NT. The program was easy to install and was up and running within one-half hour of installation (Having previous experience with TextBridge is not necessary, as the program is very easy to learn.) During installation you are given the option to integrate the program with numerous programs such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It is also able to be integrated with WordPerfect, Frontpage and Lotus 1-2-3, among others. Integration makes it possible to perform OCR without leaving your application, which can be very useful when you are working in a document in which you need to insert a table, text, or picture from another document that is not on your computer. (Integration was also available in TextBridge 98, but was more limited) One advantage, however, to working within the TextBridge program itself rather than from another application like Word, is the Proofreader editor function which highlights text that was difficult to convert, allowing you the ability to make corrections as the document is recognized, rather than after.

This version of TextBridge is even more impressive than the 98 version. It easily and accurately converted text documents, retained formatting, and seemed to have the power to recognize more text, with far less proof-reading. The ability to scan and recognize poor quality documents like faxes and photocopies greatly improved and multiple columns, tables, graphs, and even photographs are now recognized with true “WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get” results. This version of TextBridge can retain colors, which is useful when you are scanning graphs or tables with color, thereby eliminating the need to edit and add fonts and colors. You can even retain photos into digital documents.

During the scanning process, you can choose to manually identify the elements of your page (tables, graphs, pictures, text etc.), or you can choose to allow the program to determine the elements of the page. I have found that the automatic setting works fine for my needs, since my documents are not usually graph or table intensive. But occasionally I have needed the manual function, which makes it easy to identify for the program that "this is text," "this is a table," and so forth, by previewing the document in the scan, marking zones (areas) and identifying the zone as table, text, etc.

Although I do not yet have a need to create Web-ready documents, TextBridge Pro Millennium claims the ability to do so automatically, creating the HTML for you.

TextBridge Pro Millenium is not limited by language, recognizing 56 major languages. (And all this time I thought there were only 10, maybe 12!) This version of TextBridge also has “Live Updates” technology, giving you access to patches and updates via the Internet.

Okay, so that’s what I know about TextBridge Pro Millennium…. I am not a computer guru or what you would call a computer whiz, but I don’t need to be in order to install and operate this easy to understand OCR Program. In the event you want to know what those with more computer-savvy than I say about TextBridge Pro Millenium, you can check out Scansoft website which has links and quotes from various reviews of the program at http://www.scansoft.com/textbridge/reviews/

Until next time,

Jennifer

Boring but Essential Information
TextBridge Pro Millennium System Requirements:

Hardware Requirements: Intel (or compatible) 486 or higher
Software Requirements: Windows 95, 98, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows ME or Windows NT 4.0
Memory: 24MB of RAM (32MB recommended)
Hard Drive Space required: 40MB



Recommended: Yes