July, 2002      Diablo Blue     Page 7

We’re providing an Email Notification service for the DVPC monthly meeting, and for SIGs as well, for all current, paid-up members. If you’re interested in receiving an email message announcing each monthly meeting, and for the SIGs you attend, fill out this form and mail to the address on page 16 of this copy of Diablo Blue. Note that there’s no separate notification for the New Users SIG since it’s held on the same night as the monthly meeting.

Send me Email notification of each monthly DVPC meeting and these SIGs:

 

Name _______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Email Address: _______________________________________________________________________________

 

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what does that mean to me? Again, because of the intense interaction during OCR sessions, those were the two most significant areas of evaluation to me. Several other new and enhanced features were evaluated as the product was tested and comments regarding their value will be discussed through the review.

The bottom line measure of the value of a quality OCR product is end user productivity. As the quality of OCR products improves and the interpretation of a document’s content becomes more and more a function of the computer’s ability to interpret information rather than the time spent to have a human being interpret and make decisions, the higher the productivity. That is, in the final analysis, all that matters. So along the way judgments of the OmniPage improvements on user productivity will be highlighted.

The Test Begins

The first test was done primarily to allow me to gain knowledge and confidence in the use of OmniPage 11. I read the instruction manual and reviewer’s notes and formulated a test plan to put the product through its paces, but first I had to know what capability was in the software. For this first test I used the documents out of the OmniPage box. The documents are very legible and of a standard size font, about 12 point Ariel. I rated each test based on the overall quality and legibility of the source document, a 10 is a very easy document and a 1 is an extremely poor quality document. These first test documents were quality 10.

The overall design of the main OmniPage Pro OCR process is built upon the age-old concept of what computing really is. The steps are Input, Process and Output — a simple concept. Add into that each of those processes can be broadly segregated into three different approaches. They can be done manually, automatically or described through a wizard. I tried each method as I tested and found that they are very similar and easy to learn and use. It takes no additional effort to move from one approach to another.

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