Caere Announces the Availability of OmniForm 3.0 Forms Software; $149 product broadens the appeal of electronic forms by making any existing form immediately available on screen.

LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 1998--Caere Corporation (NASDAQ:CAER), the worldwide leader in scanner software, today announced OmniForm 3.0 for Windows 95 and NT, a major upgrade to the award-winning desktop forms application.

Version 3.0 broadens the appeal of electronic forms by providing significant new and enhanced features for form conversion, form design and editing, form filling, and database support. Most notable among these are the ability to save to Microsoft Word format, the ability to distribute self-running "mailable" forms, and support for centralized databases on a network. OmniForm is the only software available that automatically converts any existing form (paper or electronic) into an editable, electronic form which can be immediately filled out and saved into a database. With OmniForm, users can fill out forms on their PCs, print or submit forms, and search and retrieve form records.

"OmniForm has made life a whole lot simpler for both the people who administer forms and the people who fill them out," said Chad Kinzelberg, Caere's vice president of marketing. "Form designers benefit from improved recognition accuracy and more advanced editing tools, while people who fill out forms benefit from better access through things like centralized network databases and mailable forms."

Improved Forms Conversion

OmniForm begins the forms process by converting a scanned paper form into an editable, electronic version that can be filled out on screen. Version 3.0 adds these new and enhanced features for converting forms:

-- Enhanced Logical Forms Recognition (LFR) technology recognizes form elements and recreates an editable, electronic version while maintaining the integrity, or look and feel, of the original. LFR has been enhanced by more accurately recognizing all form elements. In addition, LFR now recognizes graphics, vertical text, circle text objects, and grouped check boxes. As a result, fewer corrections need to be made.

-- New optical character recognition (OCR) engine, which recognizes the text areas on forms, is dramatically more accurate. OmniForm 3.0 includes Caere's latest OCR technology used in its OmniPage Pro 8.0 product, providing a dramatic leap forward in OCR accuracy.

-- The new ability to send existing electronic forms to OmniForm provides an easy way for users to migrate to OmniForm. Version 3.0 adds a "Print to OmniForm" feature which allows forms created in other Windows applications, such as Microsoft Word and database applications, to be recognized and converted to the OmniForm file format.

Enhanced Form Design and Editing Capabilities

OmniForm enables users to design forms from scratch or edit existing designs using powerful drawing tools. OmniForm 3.0 improves form design and editing in a variety of ways and provides new capabilities including:

-- The ability to add vertical text to forms;

-- Shrink Page to Fit command, which scales down a recognized form so that it prints within the page margins supported by a particular printer. This is useful because some scanned-in forms have margins too narrow for common desktop printers;

-- Increased drop-down capacity, which permits up to 500 choices per drop-down box;

-- Recalculation prompt, which optionally recalculates existing records after any change in calculation formulas;

-- Enhanced zooming, which allows finer degrees of zoom levels (10%-500%). Also, users can now see and define the exact zoom percentage on the main toolbar.

Expanded Form Filling Capabilities

OmniForm includes a "filler" that allows users to fill out, print, and submit forms. The filler is perfect for forms users who do not need conversion or design capabilities. Version 3.0 now offers two new alternatives for occasional form users and also makes filling forms more convenient:

-- Mailable Run-time Filler capability enables users to distribute an OmniForm form with an executable Filler attached. Recipients can fill out the form without needing OmniForm Filler installed on their computers. Form data entered into the Mailable Run-time Filler can be imported into the OmniForm database. A license for 100 free Mailable Run-time Fillers is included with OmniForm.

-- Save to Word Converter enables users to save OmniForm forms to Microsoft Word 6.0, 95 or 97 format. As a result, visually appealing forms are available for completion in Word.

-- Type Ahead reduces the number of keystrokes in Fill mode by automatically filling fields with "remembered" information based on previously entered data. As a result, commonly entered information like the user's name will automatically populate a field as it is being typed.

Enhanced Database Support

OmniForm automatically creates a flat-file database for each form created in OmniForm. Version 3.0 expands database capabilities and support:

-- Shared database capability allows multiple users of the same Windows NT server to fill out a form and save records to a single, centralized database.

-- Enhanced ODBC support exports OmniForm records to many ODBC-compliant database applications, including Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, dBASE, FoxPro, Microsoft SQL Server, and Paradox. OmniForm now supports ODBC version 3.0.

OmniForm Filler 3.0

OmniForm Filler is a low cost companion product that enables users to fill out, but not modify, forms created in OmniForm. OmniForm 3.0 includes five copies of OmniForm Filler.

Pricing and Availability

OmniForm is priced at $149 and includes five copies of OmniForm Filler and a license for 100 Mailable Runtime Fillers. The product is available at major resellers including Best Buy, CompUSA, Computer City, Fry's, and OfficeMax. OmniForm is also available through GSA resellers including GTSI, AmeriData, BTG, CompUSA, GMR, CGES, and ASAP. Additional copies of OmniForm Filler are priced at $79 from the same resellers listed above. Site licenses for OmniForm Filler are available directly from Caere, and volume pricing is also available. Customers not satisfied with OmniForm 3.0 can take advantage of a 30-day money-back guarantee by contacting Caere directly at 1-800-736-5735 x110.

Users who purchased OmniForm 2.0 after February 1, 1998, are eligible (with proof of purchase) for a free upgrade to OmniForm 3.0 for a nominal shipping and handling charge. Users must contact Caere by April 2, 1998, to be eligible for the free upgrade.

System Requirements

OmniForm 3.0 requires a 80486 or higher processor running Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0, a minimum of 10 MB free hard disk space (OmniForm Filler requires a minimum of 4 MB hard disk space), a SVGA or VGA monitor, a Windows-compatible pointing device, a CD-ROM drive, 8 MB RAM for Windows 95 (16 MB RAM recommended) and 12 MB RAM for Windows NT 4.0 (32 MB RAM recommended), and a compatible scanner if form scanning is planned. OmniForm 3.0 includes support for more than 100 flatbed and edge-fed, black and white, grayscale, and color scanners, including models from Hewlett-Packard, UMAX, and Microtek, as well as TWAIN-compliant devices.

The Company

Caere Corporation (NASDAQ:CAER) is the worldwide leader in scanner software. Its products bridge the gap between the paper and digital worlds by converting static, paper documents into dynamic, electronic information. Caere products include the OmniPage, WordScan, M/Series, and Recognita families of OCR software; OmniForm and OmniForm Internet Publisher family of electronic forms software; PageKeeper family of personal document management software; and a broad array of hardware/software solutions for document processing and OCR and barcode reading. Caere is headquartered in Los Gatos, California. Its subsidiaries, Caere GmbH and Recognita Rt., are located in Munich and Budapest, respectively. Caere corporate and product information is available at http://www.caere.com on the World Wide Web.

The Company notes that the above projected shipment date is a forward-looking statement that is subject to change based on numerous factors including, but not limited to, work stoppages, engineering delays, quality assurance testing delays, successful completion of beta site testing, the scheduling of orders, changes in operating systems, a significant change in the competitive environment, and timely delivery by component suppliers. -0-

Note to Editors: Caere, OmniPage, OmniForm, PageKeeper, WordScan, Recognita and True Page are registered trademarks, and M/Series is a trademark of Caere Corporation. Microsoft Windows and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries. Other products named may be trademarks of their respective manufacturers and are hereby recognized.

CONTACT: Caere Corporation

Patrick Crisp, 408/395-7000 ext. 2049

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