Caere Announces the Immediate Availability of OmniPage Pro 6.0 for Macintosh; Major New Version Features Improved Accuracy, Ease of Use, and Performance.LOS GATOS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 1996--Caere Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :CAER CAER Centre d'Arts Escèniques de Reus (French) CAER Community Awareness and Emergency Response program CAER Chemical Awareness and Emergency Response Program ), the leader in optical character recognition optical character recognition (OCR), method for the machine-reading of typeset, typed, and, in some cases, hand-printed letters, numbers, and symbols using optical sensing and a computer. (OCR OCR in full optical character recognition Scanning and comparison technique intended to identify printed text or numerical data. It avoids the need to retype already printed material for data entry. ) software, today announced the immediate availability of OmniPage(r) Pro 6.0 for Macintosh, a major new version of the world's number one selling OCR software. Now fully Power Mac native, OmniPage Pro 6.0 provides significant improvements in accuracy, ease of use, and performance. Other improvements build on the robust features users have grown to expect from Caere, the market leader in OCR software. OmniPage Pro 6.0 provides significant accuracy improvements due to recognition advancements in Caere's exclusive Quadratic quadratic, mathematical expression of the second degree in one or more unknowns (see polynomial). The general quadratic in one unknown has the form ax2+bx+c, where a, b, and c are constants and x is the variable. Neural Network neural network or neural computing, computer architecture modeled upon the human brain's interconnected system of neurons. Neural networks imitate the brain's ability to sort out patterns and learn from trial and error, discerning and extracting (tm) technology, Language Analyst(tm) improvements, and the new Page Parser A routine that analyzes a continuous flow of text-based input and breaks it into its constituent parts. See parse. (language) parser - An algorithm or program to determine the syntactic structure of a sentence or string of symbols in some language. (tm). The new version also includes new ease-of-use features such as the OmniPage Guide(tm), which uses Apple Guide technology to provide interactive assistance to users, the enhanced AutoOCR Toolbar A row or column of on-screen buttons used to activate functions in the application. Many toolbars are customizable, letting you add and delete buttons as required. Toolbars may be fixed in position or may float, which means they can be dragged to a more convenient location in the (tm), and Direct Input(tm). OmniPage Pro 6.0 also includes Caere's new True Page technology, which maintains the original format of scanned pages, and HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. output capability - making OmniPage Pro 6.0 the first software package ever to convert paper documents directly into Web-ready pages. Accuracy: Number One Caere customers and industry analysts consistently agree that accuracy is the most important factor for OCR technology. "In a recent survey of OCR users, 89% identified accuracy as the number one requirement for OCR," said Kristy Holch, a leading analyst of the scanning and OCR market at BIS Strategic Decisions, a division of Giga Information Group, in Norwell, MA. "Caere is the OCR market leader, and its advancements in OCR technology are upping the ante on the demanding requirements of the growing OCR market." OmniPage Pro 6.0 delivers an improved core recognition engine with new and enhanced technologies to continue its tradition of industry-leading OCR. With OmniPage Pro 6.0, users will see an average reduction in errors of 26% compared to the previous version of OmniPage Pro on the broadest spectrum of documents without sacrificing processing speed See MHz. or usability. Quadratic Neural Network: The most notable accuracy improvement in OmniPage Pro 6.0 is Caere's exclusive Quadratic Neural Network (QNN QNN Qualified New Neighbor (State Farm) ) technology. QNN achieves more accurate identification of all characters, but its greatest contribution lies with similar-looking, ambiguous, or poorly formed characters (mostly as a result of faxing, photocopying photocopying, process whereby written or printed matter is directly copied by photographic techniques. Generally, photocopying is practical when just a few copies of an original are needed. When many copies are required, printing processes are more economical. , or low-resolution scans). QNN gains its accuracy improvements over other OCR engines by using a new method to define the differences between various characters. Once the OCR engine segments word images on the page into individual character images, it plots dozens of properties of each character (including image and contextual information) on a multi-dimensional map. Each alphanumeric alphanumeric (ăl'fən  mĕr`ĭk) or alphameric (ăl'fəmĕr`ĭk), the set of letters and numbers. character has a region on this map that the OCR engine recognizes as that particular character. The OCR engine assigns a value for each property of the character image in question. The character image is then identified as a specific alphanumeric character based Refers to the use of fixed size fonts or to using text commands, all of which are in contrast to a graphical interface (graphics based). See text based. on the region into which it falls. Most OCR engines use straight lines to define these multi-dimensional regions, but QNN more precisely defines the regions by using curvilinear curvilineara line appearing as a curve; nonlinear. curvilinear regression see curvilinear regression. segments, resulting in higher recognition accuracy, especially on hard-to-recognize, ambiguous, or degraded characters. By way of an analogy for QNN's accuracy improvement by using curved lines instead of straight ones, consider the case of a population census for the state of Missouri. If Missouri used only straight lines to define its borders, a resident in St. Louis on the Mississippi River Mississippi River River, central U.S. It rises at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and flows south, meeting its major tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio rivers, about halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. might be falsely identified as being located in Illinois. However, curved lines more clearly define state boundaries and therefore produce a more accurate census. Language Analyst: To further increase accuracy, OmniPage Pro 6.0 also includes improvements to its Language Analyst technology. Language Analyst features a new algorithm for incorporating a variety of context-sensitive techniques that employ linguistic information, trigram (three letter sequences) analysis, and dictionaries to significantly improve OCR recognition. The new algorithm in OmniPage Pro 6.0 improves Language Analyst by using better weighting schemes and evaluation methods on each of these techniques. Page Parser(tm): Another factor for increased accuracy is OmniPage Pro 6.0's new page parser, which more accurately processes and analyzes document images before sending them to the OCR engine for recognition. The new page parser provides a higher level of intelligence to analyze page elements and more accurately identify areas as text, graphics, or noise, which results in higher accuracy and improved reading order of complex documents. Ease of Use "The MacOS affords us great opportunities to make maximum OCR accuracy as accessible to users as possible," said Chad Kinzelberg, vice president of marketing. "For example, by building on Apple Guide, we can make our users more self-sufficient and productive than ever before." Apple Guide: OmniPage Pro 6.0 includes the new "OmniPage Guide," which uses Apple Guide technology to provide interactive, step-by-step on-screen on·screen or on-screen adj. & adv. 1. As shown on a movie, television, or display screen. 2. Within public view; in public. assistance. Direct Input: OmniPage Pro 6.0 includes new Direct Input, which gives users the ability to OCR from within their favorite Macintosh applications without having to switch between programs. OmniPage Pro adds a "Direct Input" option to the Apple menu to integrate OCR into text-based applications for quick access. AutoOCR Toolbar: OmniPage Pro 6.0 provides an enhanced AutoOCR Toolbar to guide the user through the major steps of the OCR process. This improved AutoOCR Toolbar includes a new Save As button for fast output of OCR results, and a new "OCR and Check" option to automatically spell check documents immediately after recognition. These additional features are especially useful when used in conjunction with the Auto button, which executes the entire OCR process in a single button click. Power Mac Native OmniPage Pro 6.0 is now fully Power Mac native. Power Mac users will enjoy improved performance on OCR tasks like zoning, image rotation, and alignment. While the previous version of OmniPage Pro included a Power Mac accelerated recognition engine, new version 6.0 is the first version of OmniPage Pro to offer completely native Power Mac performance. Other New Features HTML Output: New OmniPage Pro 6.0 also outputs to HTML format to facilitate the creation of World Wide Web pages. OmniPage Pro 6.0 is the first software package to convert paper documents directly to HTML. True Page: OmniPage Pro 6.0 now includes True Page, the page-format retention technology pioneered by Caere that maintains text and graphics in their original page layout :For the Wikipedia policy about articles layout, see Wikipedia:Guide to layout. Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements (content) on a page. for export into other applications. Scanner compatibility: OmniPage Pro 6.0 also includes support for additional scanner models, including the HP ScanJet 4 series. OmniPage Pro works with almost any scanner you can buy. System Configuration: OmniPage Pro 6.0 requires Macintosh computers with a 68030 processor and higher, Power Macintosh See Power Mac. (computer) Power Macintosh - Apple Computer's personal computer based on the PowerPC, introduced on 1994-03-14. Existing 680x0 code (both applications and device drivers) run on Power Macintosh systems without modification via a Motorola 68LC040 emulator. computers, or MacOS System 7 and higher, 5MB free RAM on 68K Macintosh computers, 7MB free RAM on Power Macintosh computers. Pricing and Availability Scanner users who received any Caere OCR products free with their scanner purchase are eligible to upgrade to OmniPage Pro 6.0 for $149 by purchasing Caere's new retail upgrade package. The upgrade pricing represents a $350 reduction in the street price of OmniPage Pro, which is expected to be $499. Retail upgrades are available through Caere's nationwide network of resellers, such as CompUSA, Computer City and all major Mac mail-order houses. Owners of any OmniPage retail product are eligible for a $99 upgrade to Version 6.0 by calling Caere directly. Users who purchased OmniPage Pro 5.0 after December 8, 1995 are entitled to a free upgrade for a nominal shipping and handling fee. Caere can be reached at 1-800-535-7226, ext. 110. Caere Corporation Caere Corporation, with U.S. headquarters in Los Gatos Los Gatos (lôs gä`tōs, lŏs, găt`əs), city (1990 pop. 27,357), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1887. It is an affluent residential community and health resort. , Calif. and European headquarters, Caere GmbH, in Munich, Germany, is the leader in OCR technology and a leading provider of desktop document management and form processing products. Caere has expanded its line of OCR products as a result of the December 1994 merger with Calera Recognition Systems. Caere's products include the OmniPage and WordScan lines of OCR software that convert printed and faxed documents into electronic text; the PageKeeper line of Windows document management software that effortlessly retrieves a wide range of information from virtually any source; OmniForm, which converts paper forms to electronic format; the M/Series high-speed, high-volume OCR hardware and software for commercial applications; and a broad array of OCR and bar code readers See bar code scanner. that accelerate transaction processing Updating the appropriate database records as soon as a transaction (order, payment, etc.) is entered into the computer. It may also imply that confirmations are sent at the same time. Transaction processing systems are the backbone of an organization because they update constantly. . Caere has recently announced its intent to acquire ViewStar, a leading provider of workflow and document and image management software. The combination will connect Caere's market-leading, desktop-based, intelligent document capture product line with ViewStar's enterprise-class, client/server solutions for business process automation. The merger creates a company with the products, technology, channel and financial strength to offer document, workflow, and business process automation solutions that span from the desktop to the enterprise. -0- Note to Editors: Trademark References: Caere and OmniPage are registered trademarks and Language Analyst, True Page, Direct Input and AutoOCR Toolbar are trademarks of Caere Corporation. Other products named may be trademarks of their respective manufacturers and are hereby recognized. CONTACT: Ron Fernandez, Product Manager Caere Corporation Internet: rfernandez@caere.com 408-395-5148 ext. 2377 or Patrick Crisp, Public Relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most Manager Macworld Expo, Booth No. 2117 or Caere Corporation Internet: patrickc@caere.com 408-395-5148 ext. 2049 |
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