NWA-PCUG 3/99 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 TextBridge Pro98 A Review by Bob Schulte, PC User Group of the Redwoods [Reprinted from the Redwood Chips, newsletter of the PC User Group of the Redwoods.] NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL INVENTIONS. Believe me this is true. Many moons ago I bought a flat bed scanner ?? Loved it. The job it did suited my needs fine. The software that came with it gave me problems at times requiring toll calls to a tech rep. But what's new? Then a while back I was now unable to get the OCR (optical character recognition) to output into my MS WORD document folder. After the second phone call to the tech rep department I was advised of the problem. I had upgraded to WORD 97 and the OCR program did not, and would not in the known future, support WORD 97. Buyer beware! I was told the only solution was to get and use TextBridge. Along came Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause (Ben Ezzell and JoAnn Murata) and presented me with a copy of TextBridge Pro 98 to review. Lifesaver! Here is just what the doctor (tech rep) ordered. TextBridge Pro 98: It is a program to take a scanned document or faxed document, massage it and change the input from mere dots to usable, editable text while retaining the original document layout complete with text and pictures. And it does it very well. It supports Windows 95 and NT and requires an 80486 or Pentium microprocessor, VGA or SVGA or multisync monitor, 16 MB of RAM, 20 MB of free hard disk space and a CD drive. Install: The installation went very smoothly ? Well just about. We are told to close all programs including those on the Task Bar before installing TextBridge Pro 98 (TB). I left my backup application icon on the Task Bar and incurred no problem. The program comes up on the screen upon insertion of the CD and leads you through the process very well. However, I missed the point at which I could select the drive in which I would prefer the application reside. Bummer! When using the program I soon received a message that my disk was dangerously full. Retreat! Sure enough, it was on my C:\ Drive (only a 500 MB drive) and almost full. Uninstall: At this point I had a chance to try out another feature of the program "Uninstall." That feature worked like a prince and I soon had TB reinstalled on drive "H:". After you agree to the License Agreement you get to select the type of installation you prefer. I choose "Typical" (recommended for most users, spelled DUMMIES). There is a large selection of scanners for setup, after which it is necessary to restart your computer. Scan: TextBridge Pro 98 may be utilized in either a Manual or Auto Process mode. It also may be started by two different methods. With the Instant Access method there are about a dozen application programs from which access is directly available, including spreadsheets and MSWeb Peer Server. The Auto Processing mode may be accessed either by bringing up the program from Explorer and clicking the "Auto Process" button or by clicking the TextBridge command in the File menu of one of the programs you pre-selected with which to use this program. Accessing it by the latter will bring up a dialog box from which you select one of seven different types of pages to match the source document from which you are scanning. You must also specify if the source is a scanner or an image file (e.g. fax). After scanning you are asked if there are more page(s) including characters, pictures and format. You may proofread the results at this point and then save the file. If the work was done from the Auto Processing or the Manual method after accessing the TB program, the file saved will be found in the "Program" folder under the TB program folder on the drive on which you installed TB. If you accessed the program from your word processor or spreadsheet, that is where the scanned file will reside. If you choose to pursue the Manual route you can stop at the page recognition stage to preview the page, "zone" the page to select what is to be used and to proofread the document. Here you can also make several other adjustments and setting solutions. When zoning you use one of three colors depending upon whether you are zoning text, tables or pictures. Components of the document may also be repositioned. I found TB to be exceptionally accurate with its OCR feature. It is claimed by one PC magazine to be 98.8% accurate. Problems: I did find some problems with its format results when a picture was included. The text location would end up slightly different in relation to the picture than it was in the original document. I could realign the picture and text pretty well manually but I might end up with a small segment that was stubborn. The pictures copied are of fairly good quality and might provide a satisfactory illustration in some cases when needed. When a multiple column document is scanned as a whole, the output is the same. If only one column is scanned or two or more scanned as separately. The output is only a column wide. When separate scans are made of two or more columns or to avoid a picture or an irregular layout, each separate segment scanned will be handled as a separate page and the output will be on separate pages. Even if a scan was only six lines, when scanned separately it will appear alone on a separate page. When I scanned two columns on a page separately, the second column followed the first scanned and each produced a one column page. Subsequently I was able to make the narrow column extend the whole page wide by accessing the Page Setup command in the File menu and making the margins smaller. TB provides an interactive training capability that may be selected. By choosing to correct spelling and verifying correctly recognized words, a high degree of accuracy may be attained on subsequent pages of the same document or pages of a similar document, since they will contain the same fonts and similar print quality. A user dictionary is available into which you can add corrected words. In the process of learning TB I hit a wrong key, did something out of turn ??or what? The end result was no matter what, after completing a scan the program would not let me go for another until I re-booted the entire system. Soon, I un-installed and reinstalled TB again. So far no more problems. Documents: The third section of the User's Guide was almost 1/2 of the entire booklet and was dedicated as a tutorial using prefabricated documents. By this time I thought use of my own documents had provided all the needed training for now. However, for maximum benefit I did read through section three. The documentation, in my view, was just a bit better than average. But because I spent so much of my working career writing, "How To" manuals, I am probably overly critical. Computer manuals, I have found, will tell you how to acquire a condition in a program but NEVER (well almost never) tell you how to get rid of it. I guess that's why you so often find the "Undo" command available in programs. When the User's Guide said to hit the XXX button, it often did not show a picture of the button nor did it describe the location of it. However, I don't believe there was anything I didn't find an answer to if I persevered long enough with the Guide and the Help menu. All in all I find TB has excellent OCR capability and has some features, some described above, that make the application well worth the cost, particularly if scanning is an integral part of your computer work. It is definitely better all around than the crippled dog I had before that couldn't take me into the new world of WORD 97. Conclusion: Text Bridge Pro 98 is produced and supported by Scansoft, Inc., a Xerox company, at 9 Centennial Drive, Peabody, Mass. 01960. They may be reached by phone at 978-977-0764 or Fax at 978-977-2434. Their web address is www.textbridge.com and their e-mail address for tech support is textbridge_support@xis.xerox.com. For upgrade info use e-mail address textbridge_sales@xis.xerox.com The only price I have ever seen, retail or street, is $80. Thanks again to Ben and JoAnn for bailing me out! {PCUGR Board Member Bob Schulte is a retired Registered Public Accountant and former auditor for the State of California. During his last 20 working years he was a User Representative of EDP accounting systems writing procedure manuals and acceptance testing of those systems. For questions or comments on this review, contact him by e-mail at: flyerbob@ sonic.net Subj: Review TextBridge Pro 98.}