ScanSoft OMNIPAGE DIRECT 2 FOR MACINTOSH User manual

OmniPage Direct
OmniPage Direct adds the power of OCR directly to any Windows word-
processing, spreadsheet, or communications program. Working within
your application, you simply choose Scan text... in the File or Control
menu. Scanned text then appears in your document just as if you had
typed it yourself. Direct is virtually automatic: just point and click to
recognize a single paragraph or multiple pages.
Chapter 1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 1
Be sure your scanner is working with the manufacturer’s scanning
software before you install Direct.
After running the SETUP software installation program within Windows,
creating a Windows swap file, and opening Direct, the Scan text...
command will appear in the File or Control menu of your Windows
application.
Chapter 2 How to Scan Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 7
Scanning text is as easy as pulling down the File or Control menu and
choosing Scan text.... The Scan text dialog box lets you scan immediately
or set options for special features such as recognizing parts of a page or
different languages.
This tutorial guides you through the simplest scan and also explains how
to use the Partial Page features.
Chapter 3 Commands and Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 13
This chapter explains every command and setting within Direct. Topics
are listed alphabetically.

0 OmniPage Direct
Chapter 4 How to Improve Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 31
This chapter tells you the tricks for speeding up Direct andfor improving
text-recognition accuracy. It explains how to recognize text from poor-
quality documents such as multiple-generation copies and newspaper
pages. Adjusting the Brightness setting is the easiest way to improve text-
recognition accuracy.
Chapter 5 Technical Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 39
This chapter lists supported scanners and provides information that may
help you solve any installation or operation problems.Error messages are
listed as well as instructions on how to contact product support. Product
support and information for all Caereproducts is also available in the
Caere sections ofboth America Online and CompuServe (Keyword
CAERE).
CAERECORPORATION
100 Cooper Court
Los Gatos, California 95030
European offices:
CAEREGmbH.
Ismaninger Straße 17-19
81675 Munich, Germany
OmniPage Direct Windows Version 2
Copyright© 1988-95 Caere Corporation. All rights reserved. CAERE®, OmniPage®, and OmniPage Professional
are trademarks of Caere Corporation. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to
distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Such designations appearing in this manual have been
printed in initial caps.
Product Serial Number:
_______________________________________________
(from Disk #1 label)

Installation 1
Chapter 1
Installation
This chapter describes how to install Direct and set it up to work with your
applications. The chapter has six sections:
• System Requirements
• Software Installation
• How to Create a Windows Swap File (Virtual Memory)
• Using WordPerfect
• Upgrading to Other Caere Products
• Special Topics
You must have at least an 8MB Windows swap file (virtual memory) to run
Direct.

System Requirements
2 Installation
System Requirements
To run Direct, you’ll need the following system:
•’386 or higher computer.
• A Caere-supported scanner installed and working with your sys-
tem. See Chapter 5, Technical Information.
• 14MB available hard-disk space.
•RAM Minimum: 4MB RAM total system memory and an 8MB
Windows swap file (virtual memory).
•RAM Recommended: 8MB RAM total system memory and a 12MB
Windows swap file (virtual memory).
• Microsoft Windows-compatible mouse.
• Windows Version 3.1 or higher.
Be sure your scanner is installed according to the manufacturer’s
instructions and is working on your system. Use the scanning software
supplied by the manufacturer before you install Direct.

Software Installation
Installation 3
Software Installation
Please install Direct from the program disks. Do not install from copies.
To install Direct software:
1 Start Windows and open the Program Manager window.
2 Insert Direct disk #1 in your computer.
3 Choose Run in the Program Manager File menu.
The Run dialog box appears.
4TypeA:SETUP (or B:SETUP) in the edit box and click OK.
The installation program will prompt you for information as it
installs Direct.
5 Fill out the warranty registration card while the program copies
files to your computer.
6 Exit Windows after the installation program is complete.
7 Create a Windows swap file.
See the next section for instructions.
8 Mail in your warranty registration card.
To learn how to run Direct, see Chapter 2, How to Scan Text. To set up
Direct to load automatically whenever you start Windows, see Load OCR
when Direct is launched in Chapter 3.

How to Create a Windows Swap File (Virtual Memory)
4 Installation
How to Create a Windows Swap File
(Virtual Memory)
To run Direct, you need at least 8MB of free disk space set up as a
Windows swap file (virtual memory). For best performance, use a
Permanent rather than a Temporary swap file and make it as large as
possible.
The swap file acts as virtual memory disk space that is used as if it were
volatile memory (RAM). Information is stored temporarily on disk rather
than using up RAM. This allows you to run more programs than you
could with RAM alone. However, using virtual memory is slower than
using RAM.
For more information about virtual memory, see the Windows User’s
Guide. For more information about the Windows Swap file, or if you have
any difficulty creating a swap file, see the chapter “Optimizing Windows”
in the Windows User’s Guide.
To create an 8MB Windows swap file:
1 Close any open applications.
2 Double-click the Control Panel icon in the Main window of the
Program Manager.
3 Double-click the 386 Enhanced icon to display the 386 Enhanced
dialog box.
4 Click Virtual Memory... to display the Virtual Memory dialog box.
5 Check the entry after Size.
• A swap file equal to or larger than 8192 is sufficient. Click Can-
cel to return to the 386 Enhanced dialog box and click Cancel
again. Close the Control Panels.
• A swap file that is smaller than 8192KB must be changed. Pro-
ceed to step 6.
6 Click Change>> to expand the dialog box.
7 Select a new drive in the Drive drop-down list if you want the
swap file to be located somewhere other than on the default
drive.
If you cannot find a drive with 8192KB of free space, you need to
delete files to free up space.
8 Type at least 8192 in the New Size edit box.
9 Click OK and exit the Control Panels.

Using WordPerfect
Installation 5
10 Click Yes in the dialog box that asks if you are sure you want to
make changes.
11 Click Restart Windows to restart immediately.
Do not press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart.
Using WordPerfect
If you are using pre-6.0 versions of WordPerfect, you must modify the
Direct setting.ini file. This file tells Direct how to paste text into these
applications.
1 Open Windows’ Notepad or other text editor.
2 Open the setting.ini text file located in the directory where you
installed Direct.
The default installation directory is c:\direct.
The first six lines look like this:
;classname=(1:doc,2:spread), (1:paste, 2:no), (0:file, 1:system), (wparam-paste)
;OpusApp=1,1,1,2229 ;use this for word 2.0 (RTF)
;OpusApp=1,1,1,2266 ;use this for word 2.0b (RTF)
OpusApp=1,1,1,108 ;use this for word 6.0 (RTF)
;WordPerfect=1,1,0,265 ;WordPerfect (RTF)
WordPerfect=1,1,0,0 ;WordPerfect 6.0 (RTF)
A semicolon in front of a line deselects that line.
3 If you’re using a pre-6.0 version of WordPerfect, delete the first
semicolon from the line that reads:
;WordPerfect=1,1,0,265 ;WordPerfect (RTF)
and add a semicolon in front of the line that reads:
WordPerfect=1,1,0,0 ;WordPerfect 6.0 (RTF)
4 Choose Save in the File menu to save your changes.
Reverse the process if you later upgrade software versions.

Upgrading to Other Caere Products
6 Installation
Upgrading to Other Caere Products
If you upgrade to another Caere product such as OmniPage Professional
and your scanner is not listed in the Select Scanner dialog box, follow these
procedures:
1 Install your new Caere application.
2 Copy the following files from your OmniPage Direct directory to
the new Caere product directory:
*.chw (any file with the extension .chw)
*.pxw (any file with the extension .pxw)
pixdflt.dll, pixperm.dll, pixpnr.dll, and pixpcx.dll
mphase.dll
scnmgrtw.exe
scanmgr.ini
scanmgr.lst
3 Start your new Caere application and select your scanner in the
Select Scanner dialog box.
Special Topics
Dashboard Incompatible with OmniPage Direct 2.0
Dashboard, the desktop manager from HP, is incompatible with this
version of OmniPage Direct.
Graphics Applications
Direct does not work with graphics applications such as Paintbrush,
CorelDraw, etc.
Using OmniPage Direct and a Visioneer Scanner Version 1.0
Before running Direct, please copy the following files from your
OmniPage Direct directory to your Visioneer (MaxMate) scanner
directory:
maxcaere.ocr
caerenew.dll
caereold.dll
caeredir.dll

How to Scan Text 7
Chapter 2
How to Scan Text
This chapter guides you through the basic steps of using Direct to scan and
recognize text.
We assume you have installed Direct according to the instructions in
Chapter 1 and that you know how to work in the Microsoft Windows
environment. Not all Direct features are described here; for a complete
description of any command or setting, see Chapter 3, Commands and
Settings.
To use Direct, follow these steps:
• Open the Direct program.
• Open your word-processing, spreadsheet, or other application.
• Choose Scan Text... in your application’s File or Control menu.
•The
Scan Text... command is in the Control menu of some applica-
tions. Open the Control menu by clicking the bar in the upper-left
corner of your application’s window.
• Adjust settings and click Scan in the Scan Text dialog box.
• Select parts of a page (optional).
After recognition, the scanned text appears in your application.
Unrecognized characters are represented in your text file with a tilde (~).

Step 1 Open Direct
8 How to Scan Text
Step 1 Open Direct
1 Open the Direct program to add the Scan Text... menu item to
your application’s File or Control menu.
2 Double-click the Direct icon in the Windows Program Manager.
Unless you have changed your Windows setup, the icon should
be in the Caere Applications program group box.
The minimized icon will appear in your Windows desktop win-
dow.
Step 2 Open Your Application
1 Open your word-processing, spreadsheet, or other application.
Direct only works within an open application.
2 Place a page in your scanner.
If you don’t know how to orient the page correctly, check your
scanner’s manual. Be sure your scanner is turned on.
Step 3 Choose Scan Text...
Choose Scan Text... in your application's File or Control menu.
The Scan Text... command is in the Control menu of some applications.
Open the Control menu by clicking the bar in the upper-left corner of your
application’s window.

Step 4 Adjust Settings and Click Scan
How to Scan Text 9
Step 4 Adjust Settings and Click Scan
A dialog box appears after you choose Scan Text....
Direct is designed to automatically determine the best way to scan a page.
You can simply click Scan and the default settings will accommodate most
scanning situations.
Settings in this dialog box and in the Options dialog box let you customize
Direct for scanning your particular documents. This step explains how to
use the Partial Page feature, which lets you select parts of a page for
recognition. Other settings are described in Chapter 3.
1 Highlight the Partial Page icon.
Full Page is the default setting.
2 If you wish to manually adjust the Brightness control, click
Options... and then deselect Auto Intensity.
The Brightness control will appear in the Scan Text dialog box.
Manually adjusting Brightness can improve recognition accuracy
and speed; see Chapter 4, Improving Performance.
• If a page has sharp, distinct characters printed on good-qual-
ity non-reflective paper, set the brightness slide to the middle,
normal setting.
• If a page has thin, broken characters, move the slide towards
Darken.
• If a page has thick, run-together characters, is printed on po-
rous paper such as newsprint, or is printed on glossy paper,
move the slide towards Lighten.
If desired, click Options to adjust other settings.
3 Click Scan.

Step 5 Select Parts of a Page
10 How to Scan Text
Step 5 Select Parts of a Page
If you highlighted Partial Page, an image of your page and a set of tools will
appear after the page is scanned. The tools let you draw zones around
parts of the page, order the zones for recognition, and zoom in or out.
1 Click on the Draw zones tool and then enclose each area you want
recognized with a selection box by holding the mouse button
down and dragging the mouse.
Zones will be recognized in the order you select them unless you
use the Order zones tool (the # symbol). To adjust a zone, first
select it by clicking on the Draw zones tool and then clicking on
the zone. Then move the mouse pointer to a selection box handle,
hold the mouse button down, and move the mouse.
The window will look like this:
Zoom in
Zoom out
Draw zones
Order zones
Erase zones
Start or stop
the
recognition
process.
Open the
Options
dialog box.
Stop
recognition
and reset
zones.
Rotate the
image 90°,
180°, or 270°.

Step 5 Select Parts of a Page
How to Scan Text 11
A number appears in each zone indicating the order in which the
zone will be recognized. You may draw up to 99 separate zones.
2 Click on the Order zones tool (the # symbol) to change the order in
which the zones will be recognized.
The numbers in the zones will disappear.
To reorder the zones, click on the zone you want recognized first.
The number 1 will appear in the zone. Then click on the next zone
you want recognized; the number 2 will appear. Continue until
the zones are appropriately ordered.
3 Click on the Erase zones tool and then click on a zone selection
box.
The selection box will be erased – not the zone itself.
4 Click Recognize to start recognition.
During recognition, text blocks are painted gray and then black on the
screen as Direct works. The Recognize button turns into an Adjust button.
If, during recognition, you want to change the way you drew or ordered
zones, click Adjust. The Partial Page window will reappear and you can use
the tools again.
After recognition the text will appear in your application just as if you had
typed it yourself.

Step 5 Select Parts of a Page
12 How to Scan Text

Commands and Settings 13
Chapter 3
Commands
and Settings
This chapter explains how to use Direct commands and settings. It is
organized alphabetically. Settings within a Direct list box are explained
under the title of the list box. For example, you can find descriptions of
Letter and Legal page-size settings under the Size heading.
About Direct
The About Direct box shows the current software version you are using,
any copyrights in effect, and the program's registered user, company
name, and serial number.
Adjust
Clicking Adjust lets you change settings after a scan has started but before
recognition is complete.
For example, imagine you selected several parts of a page for recognition
and clicked Recognize. During recognition, you notice that you forgot to
select a particular part. You click Adjust (during recognition, the
Recognize button turns into an Adjust button); recognition stops and you
can select parts correctly without having to re-scan the page.
Auto Intensity
Select this to let Direct automatically set an optimal brightness setting with
grayscale scanners.
This feature is especially useful when you scan text printed on a colored
background. It also works well when you scan “copies of copies” that have
large gray areas.

Automatically Launch Direct
14 Commands and Settings
Recognition is faster with this option turned off. If you scan high-quality
documents with crisp, black letters printed on white paper, deselect Auto
Intensity and use the manual Brightness control.
Automatically Launch Direct
Select this if you want Direct to automatically start up whenever you open
the Windows program.
Your win.ini file will be altered to include a
load=c:\opdirect\direct.exe statement.
Brightness
Select different brightness settings to lighten or darken a scanned image.
This control is available if Auto or Normal Intensity is deselected in the
Options dialog box.
The Brightness setting is the most important means you have to affect the
accuracy of text recognition. It accounts for variations in paper quality,
print quality, and scanner peculiarities. It acts like the brightness setting
on a copier.
Set brightness by moving the mouse arrow to the square in the slide,
holding the mouse button down, and moving the square toward the
desired setting. Or, click on the arrows to the left or right of the slide. Use
the numbers in the square as references for future documents. The caret
(^) represents the scanner’s normal setting.
If a page has sharp, distinct characters printed on good-quality non-
reflective paper, set the brightness slide to the middle, normal setting.

<CR> at End of Line
Commands and Settings 15
If a page has thin, broken characters, move the brightness slide toward
Darken.
If a page has thick, run-together characters or if it is printed on porous
paper such as newsprint, or if it is printed on glossy paper, move the
brightness slide toward Lighten.
To evaluate brightness settings, watch the Character Window as Direct
performs text recognition. For a description of the Character Window, see
Chapter 4, How to Improve Performance.
<CR> at End of Line
Select this if you want a hard carriage return inserted at the end of each
line of text.
Use this setting if you’re scanning lists, lines of code, or other text where
you want each line to be an individual paragraph when it appears in your
word processor. This feature will not work with lines of text shorter than
a certain length; you’ll need to experiment to find the length minimums
with your particular pages.
When this is deselected, Direct will look for extra space between lines of
text on the scanned page and interpret space as a paragraph break. It will
insert a hard carriage return at the paragraph break. If text is continuous,
it will assume that the continuous text is one paragraph.

Dictionary
16 Commands and Settings
Dictionary
Select a dictionary for use in spell checking and with the Language
Analyst. The dictionary should correspond to the language of the
document you’re scanning. The American-English dictionary is named
useng.ndx; the British-English dictionary is named ukeng.ndx.
Foreign-language dictionaries are available from your local Caere dealer
or by calling Caere at (800) 535-SCAN or [phone].
Document Type
The Document Type list box lets you select various font characteristics of
your document.
Fully formed
Select this when you scan conventionally printed text characters.
Dot matrix
Select this when you scan characters printed in draft mode by a 9-pin dot-
matrix printer. Do not select Dot matrix for pages printed in near-letter-
quality mode or printed by a 24-pin dot-matrix printer.
When you are finished scanning with the Dot matrix setting, be sure to
deselect the setting. It is only appropriate for draft-mode, 9-pin dot-matrix
printed material.
Enable Hot Key
Select this if you want to start a scan by pressing a key or key combination.
Certain applications may crash if you click Scan Text... in the File or
Windows Control menus. You’ll need to enable a hot key to start a scan
within these applications.
Choose a hot key by first selecting or typing in a key in the Enable hot key
list box. Then click on Ctrl, Shift, or Alt to set up a key combination. For
example, if F2 appears in the list box and Ctrl and Shift are selected, then
you can start a scan by pressing the Control-Shift-F2 key combination.
Full Page
Click the Full Page icon to let Direct recognize all the text on a scanned
page. Direct will determine column structure according to the Page Layout
setting in the Options dialog box.
If you want Direct to only recognize parts of a page, click the Partial Page
icon. After the scan, you’ll be able to select specific parts you want
recognized. See Chapter 2, How to Scan Text.

Hardware Options
Commands and Settings 17
Hardware Options
With some scanner installations, you’ll need to type information about
your scanner’s port address, speed, or other parameters. If the Hardware
Options section of the Scanners dialog box is gray, you don’t have to do
anything.
If Hardware Options is not gray, check your scanner’s documentation for
details on how to determine your scanner’s port address and other
parameters. These parameters are usually included at the end of the
DEVICE=YOUR_SCANNER entry in your config.sys file.
Help
Help is available by choosing Help... in the Direct icon Control menu or by
pressing the F1 function key while within a Direct dialog box.
Choosing Help... in the Direct icon Control menu will bring up a list of
topics available in the Help program. Pressing the F1 function key will
bring up context-sensitive Help; a list of topics will appear explaining all
the settings in whichever Direct dialog box is currently open. The Direct
help program conforms to the Windows 3 Help standard.
When an index appears, simply click on the topic you need help with and
help text will appear.
Ignore Abbreviations
Select this to have the spelling checker ignore words with a capitalized
letter followed by three or fewer lowercase letters and a period (for
example, Mrs., Dr., etc.).
Ignore All CAPS
Select this to have the spelling checker ignore entirely capitalized words of
four characters or less (for example, acronyms such as HUD, USDA, etc.).
Ignore Proper Nouns
Select this to have the spelling checker ignore words that do not begin
sentences and that have capitalized first letters (for example, He saw Jane
throw...).

Languages
18 Commands and Settings
Languages
Select this to choose one or more languages for text recognition.
Direct will recognize additional characters (such as circumflexes, umlauts,
etc.) unique to a particular language. You may select more than one
language by clicking on different selections; however, for faster
recognition, select only the minimum number of languages you need.
Load OCR When Direct is Launched
Select this if you want Direct to load the optical character recognition
(OCR) program in your computer’s memory when Direct is started. Direct
will take a few seconds to load OCR, and then there will be no delay the
first time you scan a page.
There are two parts to the Direct program. One is the part that shows
dialog boxes and drives your scanner. The other, the OCR portion, is the
part that actually analyzes a scanned image and converts it into text. The
OCR part uses a lot of your computer's memory.
Normally, Direct waits until you scan before it loads OCR into memory.
The first time you scan, it takes a few seconds for Direct to load the OCR.
Once loaded, OCR stays in memory until you close the program.
However, you can use the Unload OCR after n minutes of inactivity setting
to clear OCR from memory without closing the Direct program.
Multiple Pages
Select this icon if you want to scan more than one page.
After a flatbed scanner scans a page, a prompt will appear asking you if
you want to scan more pages. If you use an automatic document feeder
(ADF), the prompt will appear when the ADF is empty.