Speech and imaging solutions provider Nuance (News - Alert) Communications has introduced OmniPage Professional 16, the newest version of the optical character recognition (OCR) and document conversion application for Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows.

OmniPage Professional 16 is positioned as having the best document conversion accuracy, breakthrough three-dimensional (3D) digital camera capture technology and unparalleled speed advances. The solution is considered the easiest way to edit, share and store paper, PDF and electronic documents.

With its high accuracy and patented innovations, OmniPage Professional has been the world’s best-selling desktop OCR application for years. This new release delivers a 27 percent increase in document conversion accuracy and speed increased of up to 46 percent.

Nuance has also integrated its newest technology to take advantage of today’s pervasive dual-core processors in order to deliver a 97 percent speed improvement when comparing OmniPage 15 on a single core system. As a result, OmniPage 16 is up to 50 percent more accurate and more than 46 percent faster than alternatives.

OmniPage Professional 16 is also the first desktop OCR application to provide native support for the new open standard ECMA Open XML

file formats used by the 2007 Microsoft Office system. This solution is also the first OCR application that will provide input and export support for the XML Paper Specifications, or XPS, an important new ‘electronic paper’ format for scanning, sharing, archiving and indexing documents for search applications.

"I think we've all recognized that paper documents are not going away anytime soon, and they continue to create significant business and productivity challenges when compared to electronic documents," said Ralph Gammon, editor and publisher, Document Imaging Report, in a Tuesday statement.

"With OmniPage 16, Nuance shows that OCR and document conversion can be applied in new ways to overcome these challenges. Increased speed and accuracy, a simplified user interface, enhanced forms capabilities, XPS and Office 2007 support - all of these features cement Nuance's status as a leader in the document capture market. OmniPage continues to offer real value and time savings benefits to organizations of all sizes."

OmniPage has been selected by millions due to its accuracy and ease of use. The application replaced manual document conversion with an automated approach, saving time and money.

"The new release of OmniPage delivers powerful document capture and conversion capabilities that are particularly valuable to users of Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007," said Gray Knowlton, group product manager for the Office Group at Microsoft Corp, in Tuesday’s statement.

"Supporting the Ecma Open XML file formats and XPS will help users capture and exchange information in open formats - an important step forward in enabling interoperability."

Nuance presents certain features and capabilities as being the most compelling for extending the applications of OCR and document conversion to a broader set of everyday document tasks. Many of these enhancements to the OmniPage 16 are unique innovations that are not available in alternative solutions.

These features include: the best OCR and document conversion accuracy; fastest OCR on the market; 3D capture for digital cameras; scan-and-redact; easiest OCR to use; first OCR with integrated document management; first OCR to include electronic and paper forms processing; one-button workflow; and the first OCR to support 2007 Microsoft Office System Files and XPS.

"With OmniPage Professional 16, Nuance has significantly improved the core features that matter most within OCR products - accuracy, speed and application support," said Robert Weideman, senior vice president and general manager for Nuance Productivity Applications, in Tuesday’s statement.

"More impressive are the robust set of new features, such as 3D Capture for digital cameras and scan-to-redact capabilities, which make OmniPage more valuable to existing users - and more compelling to an even broader audience."

OmniPage Professional 16 will be available no later than August 7th through Nuance's global network of reseller partners. OmniPage Professional 16 is $499.99 for individual users, with volume discounts available through the Nuance Open License Program.

Nuance’s OmniPage Professional 16 is well positioned to address the needs of every organization that is implementing electronic conversion of hard documents. As more and more businesses take the “paperless” approach, the demand for scanning and OCR will continue to grow.

The technology behind OCR is not a perfect science. To date, no solution is 100 percent accurate, although the Nuance solution comes in a close second. With proper monitoring, the OmniPage Professional 16 will provide any organization with the tools needed to convert documents to use wherever necessary.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.

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