by: James Bell
It might take a leap of faith to believe that your PC could put paper out to pasture. But when it comes to sharing files with other PC users, Adobe Acrobat software makes paper seem passe`.
I tested a beta of Acrobat Pro 2.1, which adds more platform support, more convenient operation and new plug-in options for linking Acrobat documents with multimedia files and Internet Web sites.
Acrobat lets you create application and platform-independent electronic documents. You print documents from any application to a special Acrobat print driver, which builds a Portable Document Format (.PDF) file that maintains formatting, fonts and graphics. The .PDF files can be viewed or printed by others with Acrobat Reader, a free utility.
Acrobat Pro 2.1 includes the Reader utility and the more sophisticated Acrobat Exchange. Exchange provides viewing and printing options, but also lets you set bookmarks, annotate Acrobat pages with pop-up notes and modify .PDF documents. You can reorder, rotate and crop pages; combine .PDF files; set access restrictions; control on-screen text flow; and define links between individual pages, multiple .PDF files or external applications. Like Reader, Exchange is an OLE 2.0 server.
From most applications, to create a .PDF file you use Acrobat PDF Writer driver. For better results with graphic-intensive files and for processing PostScript files, Acrobat Distiller is also included. Both PDF Writer and Distiller have options for reducing .PDF document size by compressing graphics (using JPEG for color graphics, and LZW, RLE or CCITT Group 3 for monochrome images). Distiller provides more detailed controls, like the ability to adjust images to specific resolutions.
Acrobat provides several options for reducing the font information stored in each document, including substituting Multiple Master fonts or by storing only the necessary characters in display fonts. Acrobat supports both TrueType and Type 1 fonts.
Font management was a shortcoming of earlier Acrobat versions, which required Adobe Type Manager (ATM). Although just an inconvenience for some, it was a serious problem for Windows NT users who could not run ATM. Acrobat Pro 2.1 solves this problem by internally incorporating an ATM subset.
Acrobat Pro 2.1 also adds multimedia support. Reader and Exchange include a Movie plug-in tool that lets you display QuickTime and .AVI files. You choose whether to display a control panel, and whether the video file runs as part of the existing page or in a floating window.
Weblink, another new plug-in for Exchange and Reader, lets you automatically connect to the World Wide Web by clicking on an Internet URL address in a .PDF document. Weblink's capabilities are a logical extension to Acrobat's hypertext links, and .PDF files are becoming a popular way to distribute formatted documents over the Web.
Acrobat's performance and ease of use have been improved, too. I had no trouble creating .PDF documents from business applications using PDF Writer and had equal success with Distiller processing complex Adobe PageMaker and CorelDRAW files. The fidelity of text and graphics was superb, both on-screen and printed. In most cases, the Acrobat document was smaller than the original file.
I only have two gripes with Acrobat Pro 2.1. At $595, it isn't cheap. You can opt for the standard $195 Acrobat Exchange 2.1 package (without Distiller), but if you are working with graphics, you'll need Distiller. My second beef is that Exchange offers sophisticated search capabilities with stem, phonetic and thesaurus matching, but it only works with indexes produced by Acrobat Catalog--a separate $500 program.
Still, there's a lot to like about Acrobat Pro 2.1. With support for Windows 3.x, 95 and NT, as well as MS-DOS, Macintosh and UNIX--and the ability to link to just about anything--Acrobat just might help save a tree or two.
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Adobe Acrobat Pro 2.1
Price: $595; upgrade from Acrobat Pro 2.0, $89; upgrade from Acrobat Pro 1.0, $199
In Brief: Acrobat Pro 2.1 adds support for more platforms and new plug-ins for linking to multimedia files and Internet Web browsers.
Adobe Systems
800-833-6687, 415-961-4400
by: James E. Powell
Adaptive Recognition Technology is a mouthful that translates into more accurate character recognition in Caere's WordScan Plus 4.0.
I tested WordScan using a Visioneer PaperPort scanner. After scanning a page and kicking off the OCR process, WordScan displays a progress monitor of the two passes it makes--one to find the text regions and the other to convert the text. After conversion, an editing window highlights questionable conversions. You press Tab to move sequentially through the highlighted words. For each, WordScan shows you its "best guess" translation and the corresponding area in the original document. You then can type any necessary corrections.
This version uses the Predictive Optical Word Recognition (POWR) OCR engine, which reads an entire word before isolating and trying to recognize individual letters. With this technology, WordScan can figure out questionable characters based on their context.
WordScan also accepts documents directly from WinFax Pro. It offers a simple toolbar--with a one-button operation--to acquire an image, load the OCR engine and drop the results into an application. A new Microsoft Word button will initiate OCR and then put the text in a new Word document. This procedure maintains fonts, bolding, underscores and other attributes in the Word document, but it sidesteps the pop-up editor to check the new text against the original. That, unfortunately, eliminates an important step for ensuring the greatest degree of accuracy.
If you invert a document as you scan it, WordScan lets you rotate it to the proper orientation. The program deskews crooked documents automatically.
Caere also has a solution if your scanning needs go beyond conversion. PageKeeper accepts documents and files from a scanner, WinFax Pro, or your VIM or MAPI e-mail system. If necessary, it will run them through the OCR process, letting you correct any questionable text. But then PageKeeper indexes each document.
I had PageKeeper index some scanned documents, but I also pointed it to specific directories and file extensions to index several existing Word and WordPerfect documents. The function is fast, but if you're indexing a large directory of documents, it can still prove to be a time-consuming process.
When you search for a word among the indexed documents, PageKeeper almost instantly finds the matching text strings and displays a list of documents that contain the text. The documents are arranged and color-coded in a ranking system that puts the document you would most likely want at the top of the list. A separate search window lets you use Boolean terms in a search. You can also skip the OCR step and just capture page images for quick display using the program's excellent compression algorithm.
You are able to put indexed documents directly into PageKeeper's database or keep them in their original directories. For those documents in the database, you can attach free-form notes, which can be searched, too.
PageKeeper has some limitations. You can't search for part of a word or for synonyms. While the scanning is fairly accurate, I used the editor to correct some conversion hits and found that these changes were not always saved properly.
PageKeeper exhibits impressive speed at finding and ranking documents. If it could borrow WordScan's OCR engine with its convenient pop-up comparison window, you'd be able to fix OCRed documents before they are indexed.
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PageKeeper 2.0 and WordScan Plus 4.0
Price: PageKeeper 2.0, $195; WordScan Plus 4.0, $595
In Brief: PageKeeper lets you scan or import documents and then index them so that you can search them for specific information. WordScan's OCR is extremely accurate and easy to use when identifying and correcting questionable conversions.
Disk Space: PageKeeper, 14.1MB; WordScan, 8.2MB
System Resources: PageKeeper, 9%; WordScan, 5%
RAM: PageKeeper, 8MB; WordScan, 4MB (8MB recommended)
Caere Corp.
800-535-SCAN, 408-395-7000
by: Rich Castagna
A billion trees don't believe it, and neither do I. The promise of a paperless office is getting buried in a blizzard of pages churned out more efficiently than ever. But if we can't have paperless, maybe we can have less paper. UMAX's PageOffice will not only help plow piles of paper into oblivion, but it can help us manage the information that comes on those pages.
PageOffice is a hardware and software combo. The software is more interesting, but the hardware gets noticed first: it's a page-scanning device that takes up about a 6-by-12-inch patch of desktop. It stands about a foot tall. You slide pages in at the top, push a button, and the page feeds through in five or six seconds.
The hardest thing about installing the PageOffice is finding a place for it among the piles of paper on your desk. You just slip the SCSI card into a slot, connect the cables and install the five diskettes worth of software.
The PageManager software is the nerve center of PageOffice. You need to have it up and running to use the scanner. Two areas dominate the opening screen. The largest is the scanning desktop, where images appear in thumbnail form as the scanner captures them. Just below this lies a row of oversized buttons with icons that you use when you decide just what you want to do with a scanned image.
Four of the buttons at the bottom belong to PageManager. PageFile is a document and image management system, PageImage is an image editor, PageType is a basic forms design-and-fill package and the fourth button is for PageOffice's own fax software. The other buttons on the bar depend on what you have on your system. For example, if PageManager sees e-mail or Write--they get buttons. You can add your own, too, using a simple dialog box to put your favorite apps within easy reach.
When you scan a page, it appears on the desktop as a thumbnail. Each page of a document appears separately, but you can gang them up so they stay together when you put them away. I found the scanner a little awkward to use. The paper guides on top were just a little too tight, so I had to fiddle with pages to get them to feed correctly.
Once a scanned page appears, the real fun begins. If you want to turn it into editable type, you can just drag it to a word processor button and drop it.
This kicks off PageOffice's built-in OCR engine. The engine may seem stuck in idle at first--it took about a minute for a standard-sized page--but it really roars when it comes to OCR accuracy. It's worth the wait.
You can also drag the page--the image or the OCR results--and plop it down on your e-mail system's icon. PageManager will start up the e-mail software, open a new message and attach the file. All you have to do is address it and push the send button. Faxing a page is just as easy. Slide a page over to the fax button and PageManager pops up its "fax machine," which you can dial by clicking on the keypad or by plucking a name out the fax program's phone book.
For scanned graphics, you can use PageImage to modify the pictures. PageImage provides a good set of image-editing tools, but it won't make big guys in the image editing business nervous. It's really there so that you can tweak your captured images before sending them on to a colleague or dropping them into the company newsletter.
PageFile provides the tools for maintaining all the pages you convert from paper into pixels. It's based on a file cabinet, drawer and folder metaphor, and using it, too, is a drag-and-drop affair. A menu pick from the File menu lets you set up new file cabinets with as many drawers and folders as you need. Later, you can search for files by document name, key words, creation date or by markers placed earlier.
I once worked with a guy who threw out all the papers on his desk at the end of each workday. That's one solution. PageOffice can keep your desk as clean his was, and with the information you keep, you won't have to start all over every day.
Info File
Page Office
Price: $499
In Brief: Page Office includes a small desktop page scanner and a suite of file management programs for documents and graphics.
Disk Space: 20 MB
System Resources: 2% (PageManager Module)
RAM: 4 MB
UMAX Technologies
800-562-0311, 510- 651-8834