OmniPage Pro X--or any OCR--work for anybody in 10.3?
 

Even with erase-and-clean install, and Repair Permissions before and after OmniPage Pro X installation, v. 8.0.1 crashes whenever I try to do optical character recognition, even of any of the samples that are part of the installation package.

But, then, again, it crashed in 10.2.8, one of the reasons I decided not to do an archival install.

A search of the ScanSoft knowledge base did not yield anything that I found helpful.

Although I'm registered for ScanSoft's discussion group, it will not let me on to raise a question. I verified the password I used by email from the webmaster. I notifed the company's webmaster of the problem two weeks ago, but still can't get on to raise a question, just as a "guest." I could find nothing helpful and a lot of unanswered questions.

A call to Technical Support would cost $20 plus long-distance phone charges.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get optical character recognition that works with 10.3? (By the way, I use VueScan to make up for the lack of support of my Astra scanner by UMAX).
:confused:

possible fix for OmniPage
 

Well, this piece of software is a real donkey, IMO.
I have found the only wat to get it to work is to install it while logged in as root.
you may be able to get aroudn this by using a program like Psuedo to run the installer.
Hope that helps
Simon

I'm not having problems with it on my computer*, which is sufficiently unorthodox and full of hacks that if it runs here it ought to run pretty much anywhere --

WallStreet PowerBook (you know, ADB, classic serial ports...)
10.2.8 on a partition of a 3rd-party HD not supposed to work with this PB
Sonnet G4 upgrade card, 512 MB unsupported RAM exceeding official max for this PB
no Dock
Duality
Default Folder
Windowshade X
FruitMenu
Labels X
etc...

I'd keep wrestling with it, that would be my advice.

* aside from speed. It's way slower than OmniPage Pro under MacOS 9.

No luck here. Tried OCR on 10.3 from an Epson 1240 scanner, but the OmniPage software will no longer see the scanner. Image scanning is fine to Photoshop with TWAIN. Had to go back to the OS9 partition to get the job done. However, in 10.3, I can scan text pages into Image Capture, output to a PDF, then OmniPageX OCR the PDF to a Word file. Guess I would rather do that than go back to OS9 to OCR. Guess I just have to laugh at this.

~Dennis

Sorry, but the heading to this thread on Omini Page Pro X specified problems with 10.3-- not 10.2.8. If anybody has installed and tried it sucessfully or unsuccessfully with OS 10.3, please respond.

Aye, but you said it crashed under 10.2.8 which was why you did not archive-and-install.

If it wasn't working in 10.2.8 and also isn't working now in 10.3, but others have found it noncrashy in 10.2.8, that seems to hint at problems other than between OmniPage X and 10.3. "Hey doc, I thought you said I'd be able to sing after this throat operation!" "You should be able to. You were singing fine until the operation?" "No, I've never been able to sing, but you said..."

Has anyone got it to work in OS 10.3?
 

Again, I wish to hear from somebody who has OmniPage Pro X operating in OS 10.3. I did an erase-and-clean install of 10.3 for a number of reasons, including to prevent problems any corruption from 10.2.8 continuing into 10.3. Please focus on how you got OminiPage Pro X to work in 10.3.

well, I can get omnipage pro 8.0.1 to work in classic in 10.3, just not scan.

You don't have to scan through omnipage to do OCR. You can batch scan tiffs for all your pages and then load them as a file to OCR...works just fine.

Unfortunately, that's the latest version I have so can't directly answer the question.

I can't even get it to install. Keep getting a System error: (-61). This is done as root on a flower power iMac.

I was getting the System Error (-61), too! After a bit of research, I found the answers to question of how to install Omnipage Pro X under Panther. I was able to install, but found out my Microtek scanner doesn't have an OSX driver!

Here's what they have to say about the situation.

http://knowledgebase.scansoft.com/vi...11&sQuery=2655

Here are the workarounds. I found option 1 worked well enough.

http://knowledgebase.scansoft.com/vi...10&sQuery=2653

Hope this helps!

Mike
Toronto

I lost the ability to scan from OmniPage Pro X when I upgraded to Jaguar. Since then, I've had to scan my pages as tiffs then do OCR on those.

My little CanoScan N670U provides a "next-best" solution. Its CanoScan Toolbox software enables push-button scanning of documents which are opened in OmniPage Pro. That's all working very well in Panther.

Is OmniPage Pro still the only OCR software for OS X? Has there been an update since it came out in 2001? (none that I'm aware of).

ReadIris 7 Pro (comes with HP Scanning software) works just fine in Panther.

Just checked it out at versiontracker and it's now up to version 9. I was curious and checked when it was last updated as a clue to how it might work with the current OS: 12 months ago, which beats the 32-month-old last version for OmniPage. It lists for $130, but I found that NewEgg.com sells it for $98.

I may struggle with OmniPage until an OCR program version comes out that works with Tiger.

I did get OmniPage to work with Panther at the end of last year but have not had a need to run it since.

I don't remember whether or not I installed OmniPage as Root. It's in my notes, so if the first 6 steps don't work, try that.

OmniPage x install:
1. Create a New Folder on your Desktop.
2. Copy the contents of OmniPage CD into this New Folder.
3. Open this New Folder and then open the "InstallerMaker Archives" folder.
4. Select "OmniPage Pro X < language >" where < language > is the language you are installing.
5. Choose "Get Info" from the Finder
6. (may be necessary) In the General Info category, select the box to "Open in the Classic environment"
7. (may be necessary according to one forum thread): "Install it while logged in as root. You may be able to get around this by using a program like Pseudo to run the installer."
------------------------

If you use VueScan . . .

When I did get OmniPage working, I still had problems using it with document scans from my UMAX Astra 6400 scanner with VueScan (UMAX failed to support my scanner for OS X). Then I found out from Ed Hamrick what VueScan settings were required to make a document readable by an OCR program. The following worked:

-- 64 rgb, even if black and white
-- 300 dpi

I wish to thank everybody for contributing to the thread, although I must admit I was surprised when after nearly a year of being dormant it became active again this month.

Respectfully, Norm

It can be done!!
 

I got mine to work after a lot of playing around with installing and uninstalling both OmniPage Pro X and the scanning software for my Agfa e50 scanner, called ScanWise. It won't cooperate if I use Microsoft Word as the final destination, but it does fine using AppleWorks word processor.
It almost seemed to enjoy making me crazy, so I finally just sat down one day and calmly tried a lot of variations until it finally worked out. Part of the method is to install OmniPage prior to the scan software, so that it will list it as an option.

Perhaps the trick is to use a Zen approach, and not worry about the outcome

Holly

I'd long since forgotten about this thread. I'm still using the same WallStreet PowerBook but nowadays I'm in 10.3.5 and yes OmniPage still works.

When I say "works", mind you, I mean I can launch the program and aim it at a folder-full of TIFFs and it churns out recognized text.

It doesn't drive my scanner directly, but then neither does anything else under MacOS X, it's a SCSI 3-pass flatbed, a UMAX UC 630 from 1994 :)

I know this is off track a bit but it can be another option. I use ABBYY FineReader 5 with an Epson Perfection 1670, with 10.3.5 and it works everytime. You can get a free demo here: http://www.abbyy.com/download/?param=2270
Cost is $129.00 US.

Yippee!!!
 

Believe it or not, I had messed up my computer, and could no longed use OmniPage Pro X for the last couple of months. :eek: Today was the first day I've had time to mess with it again, so I came here to see what was posted. My own post reminded me of what I needed to do.

I trashed the scanner software, and reinstalled it. Then I manually placed the plug0in from both OmniPage Pro X and the scanner software in the plug-in folder in Photoshop Elements. Just for good luck, I rebooted my computer. All of the sudden I can OCR again. I'm thrilled! :D

Just be sure to set the destination as Apple Works, not Microsoft Word, or you'll keep getting errors.

Holly

A 53 Mb download and it uses a CLASSIC installer?!?!? :eek: Ahhhh! Can you tell me if only the installer needs Classic, or the entire app is as well....?

If you want native OS X OCR, think about ReadIris v.9. I heard a rumor they were working on an engine update that should be ready soon. I sure hope so.

~/Dennis

I just downloaded the VueScan demo. It was only 2.3 Mb (:p), and worked fine with my AGFA SnapScan in 10.4.2. It also has OCR, and seemed to work fine, though I couldn't get it to run OCR on a saved .pdf file. I changed the file to a .tif in Photoshop, but haven't gotten good results yet, though I am still working at it.

Ed Hamrick recently added an OCR feature to VueScan. It works fine with OS 10.4.2 on my G4 with my unsupported (by UMAX) Astra 2400 scanner

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/7610

He has a demo version and more information than above at:
http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

Respectfully, Norm

Just to complete the vision on OS X-native OCR software, the full version of Acrobat (not the free reader) includes an OCR-option since version 6 inclusive.

And it is indeed astonishing that the editors you'd count among the "usual suspects" don't have up to date offers here, so unless I missed something there's VueScan and Acrobat, end of story.

I'm using "ABBYY FineReader 5 Sprint" and it starts up in OS 10. I don't know about the installer, I had it on a disk with my printer and it ran in OS X. That was almost two years ago though.

Omnipage 10 SE came bundled with my Canon scanner and it works fine in OSX (not classic). It's quite fast too...not that I've used it much, but I'm pretty happy with it.

I thought I'd resurrect this thread again to add my 2c worth.

I use Omnipage Pro X on two G4 towers, both with Epson Perfection 4870 Photo scanners. On G4 has a Sonic 1.4GHz CPU upgrade and runs 10.3.9. The other is a dual 1GHz running OS 10.4.6. I had no problems installing and running the software.

Accuracy ain't bad but it drives me crazy by highlighting dozens of perfectly correct words in green. I have to go through each one "ignore", "ignore" just to catch the very occasional mistake. Why isn't there an option "ignore suspect words if found in dictionary"? Also, which can't it learn that words like "thcn" should be "then"? And surely it's obvious that two "curly apostrophes" must actually be a "double curly quote". And, finally, why does it insist on changing a comma to an apostrophe? Has it no sense of spacial relationship?

It's a brilliant piece of software that's spoilt by its inability to ignore words that are 99.9999% certain to be correct and its inability to figure out that, for example, "cach" must really be "each". And it has serious problems with capital "W".