Caere and Canon Announce OmniPage Pro version 6.0 J: Next Generation Japanese OCR Technology; OmniPage Pro 6.0 J Sets a New Standard for Japanese OCR Productivity with Powerful Speed, Accuracy, Page Format Retention and Usability Features.

LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 1996--Caere Corporation (NASDAQ:CAER), the leader in optical character recognition (OCR) and Canon Inc., an industry leader in professional and consumer imaging equipment and information systems, today announced OmniPage Pro version 6.0J, a powerful, easy to use Japanese OCR product for Microsoft Windows.

OmniPage Pro J sets a new standard for OCR productivity by providing state-of-the-art speed, accuracy, and page format retention capabilities for the recognition of both Japanese and English language documents. OmniPage Pro J is the first Japanese OCR product to provide the speed, accuracy, and ease of use found in Caere's leading family of OmniPage OCR products. OmniPage Pro J's superior OCR technology delivers Next Generation Japanese OCR software.

Optical character recognition technology allows users to turn paper-based information into computer-editable text by processing scanned or faxed information and converting it to text that can be used in word processing, spreadsheet, and other text-based applications. OCR eliminates the need to re-type documents and saves users time. The benefit of OCR is especially important to Japanese computer users because the typing of Japanese characters is very time consuming and may involve several key strokes for one character.

Expected to be available in November, OmniPage Pro J is developed by Canon with Caere providing usability expertise from its leading OmniPage Pro OCR product. The full-featured OmniPage Pro J application provides significant accuracy, formatting speed and ease of use advantages over current Japanese OCR products.

"Canon has put many years of research and development into this OCR application, and we are pleased to have a marketing and technology partner who has a worldwide leadership position in OCR and scanning related-solutions," said Ichiro Endo, Canon's Director, Chief Executive of Product Development Headquarters. "We look forward to continuing our relationship with Caere for future versions of OmniPage Pro and potentially other software products for the Japanese market as well."

Unprecedented OCR Throughput

OmniPage Pro J delivers unprecedented OCR throughput by providing exceptional speed, accuracy, and page retention features all in one package. This combination increases overall OCR productivity by reducing the time users spend on the OCR process. The product's speed, accuracy and page layout retention capabilities lead the industry.

-- Speed: OmniPage Pro J includes a very fast OCR engine for the conversion of Japanese and English text. In a recent evaluation of leading Japanese OCR products, the ISRI Laboratory at the University of Las Vegas Nevada (UNLV) identified OmniPage Pro J as the fastest by a significant margin. In this test, OmniPage Pro J processed up to 500% faster than the second best performer (1). Users will significantly benefit from less time spent waiting for the OCR engine to process scanned pages.

-- Accuracy: OmniPage Pro J's OCR engine is not only fast -- but is highly accurate. The product provides recognition technology for Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana text ranging in sizes from 6 to 48 points and for English text in sizes from 6 to 72 points. In addition, OmniPage Pro J recognizes pages mixed with Japanese and English text. In the UNLV evaluation, OmniPage Pro J was identified as producing the lowest number of errors and, therefore, having the best recognition accuracy. The second best performer produced over 29% more errors than OmniPage Pro.

Another key component to OCR accuracy is the correct identification of the reading order of text. During the OCR process, OmniPage Pro J automatically identifies the reading order and direction of text (horizontal or vertical), a capability critical for the accurate recognition of Japanese language, since it can be read left to right or from top to bottom. In the UNLV evaluation, OmniPage Pro J was identified as the best OCR product in the identification of the reading order of Japanese text by a factor of 4 over the second best performer and a factor of 20 over the worst performer.

-- Page Format Retention: OmniPage Pro J includes True Page(r), a page-format retention technology that maintains page elements in their original format when text is exported Microsoft Word in RTF. OmniPage Pro J maintains text, graphics, columns, tables, margins, indents, line spacing, and paragraph spacing and automatically recreates these page elements in Microsoft Word 6.0 and 7.0. Maintaining the original look and feel of scanned pages, True Page eliminates the need for users to reformat OCR'd documents and saves users time. The product outputs these elements true to their original form and is significantly better than competing Japanese OCR applications. True Page is especially useful with magazine and newspaper pages that are extremely complex.

Usability Features

Another key feature of OmniPage Pro J is its well-designed, easy to use interface. With many years of consumer software experience, Caere has provided significant usability features in OmniPage Pro J. The product borrows usability features from Caere's OmniPage Pro product that has been recognized for its intuitive user interface.

"Caere has more than twenty years experience in the OCR industry, with over eight years of delivering leading OCR solutions to millions of Windows and Macintosh users," said Larry Lunetta, Caere's senior vice president of sales and strategic partners. "With our experience in desktop applications and Canon's technology, OmniPage Pro J provides a powerful and useful product to our customers."

With a major focus on usability, Canon and Caere have combined innovative OCR in an easy to use program. OmniPage Pro J includes usability features like:

-- an AutoOCR Toolbar that guides the user through the major steps of the OCR process including Loading/Scanning, Zoning, and Recognizing. The Toolbar includes the AutoButton that provides one-click automatic OCR processing. Introducing the AutoOCR Toolbar in 1994, Caere can be credited with the concept to provide an easy to understand toolbar that guides the user through the OCR process.

-- Check Recognition that provides an easy method of checking for errors on a recognized page. Verifying errors is extremely easy since OmniPage Pro J displays a picture or bitmap of the text in question during the proofing process. Check recognition will identify questionable words not in the dictionary and easily allows the user to ignore suspect words or add words to the dictionary, much like a spell checker.

-- a Transfer Text Directly features that sends OCR'd text directly to many major text-based applications including MS Word 6.0 and 7.0, MS Excel 5.0, Lotus Ami Pro 3.1J, Lotus 1-2-3 5.0J, and Ichi-Toro 6.0 Mifes 1.0, Quatro Pro 1.02, and Oasys Win 2.0.

-- a Standard Toolbar that includes familiar looking icons that work like many Microsoft Windows programs. The familiarity of the icons benefits the user by keeping a consistent look and feel of other standard applications.

OmniPage Pro J is a full featured OCR application that goes beyond the basic OCR capabilities and provides users with robust OCR features such s batch processing, OCR training, zone templates, and other robust OCR capabilities. A complete list of features is provided on the OmniPage Pro J Fact Sheet.

Pricing and Availability

OmniPage Pro 6.0 J is priced at 44,800 yen (2) (approximately $450 U.S.) and is expected to be available in November. The product is distributed through Softbank and available through major computer storefronts in Japan. For information on availability in the United States and other countries, contact Caere at 800/654-1187 or 408/395-7000.

System Requirements

OmniPage Pro 6.0 J requires Microsoft Japanese Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, a minimum of 15 MB free hard disk space, 12 MB RAM for Windows 3.1 or 16 MB RAM for Windows 95, 15 MB Windows permanent swap space, a 386-based or higher PC, a Windows 95 compatible pointing device, and a 1.44 MB high density floppy disk drive or CD-ROM drive and a TWAIN-compliant scanner.

The Company

Caere Corporation, with U.S. headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif. and European headquarters, Caere GmbH, in Munich, Germany, is the leader in OCR technology and a leading developer of desktop form processing and document management products. 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 based 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 that accelerate transaction processing.

(1) Information based on the ISRI at UNLV evaluation of Japanese OCR systems (dated September 1996). The evaluation consisted of AI Soft Yonde!!koko version 2.0, Caere OmniPage Pro version 6.0J, Media Drive e.Typist version 2.0, and Ricoh Yomitori-monogatari version EX V2. A summary of the results was released today in a press announcement by Caere in Japan.

(2) Pricing will vary among countries. -0-

Note to Editors: The Company note that the above projected product shipments and fulfillment of contractual obligations are forward-looking statements that are subject to change based on numerous factors including, but not limited to, work stoppages, engineering delays, quality assurance testing delays, the scheduling of orders, changes in operating systems, a significant change in the competitive environments, and timely delivery by component suppliers.

Trademark References: Caere, OmniPage, Image Assistant, PageKeeper, and WordScan are registered trademarks, and True Page, AutoOCR Toolbar, OmniForm, and M/Series are trademarks of Caere Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Windows and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries.

CONTACT: Caere Corporation

Jackie Cox, 408/395-7000 ext. 2376

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Patrick Crisp, 408/395-7000 ext. 2049

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