Tips

• Scanning settings

  Use 300 dpi resolution for regular texts (font size 10pts. or greater) and 400-600 dpi resolution for texts set in smaller font sizes (9pts. or less). Scanning in grayscale mode is best for recognition purposes. If you scan your images in grayscale, brightness is adjusted automatically. If you wish to see the Scanner Settings dialog in Use ABBYY FineReader interface mode, select the Display options dialog before scanning item on the Scan/Open tab (Tools>Options).

• Open Image Files or ABBYY FineReader Batches Directly from Windows Explorer

  Right-click the image file or the ABBYY FineReader batch you wish to open and select Open with ABBYY FineReader in the local menu.

• Page Layout Analysis

  Page layout analysis can be carried out both automatically and manually. In most cases, ABBYY FineReader manages the complex task of page layout analysis by itself. Start automatic analysis by clicking on the 2-Read button. Recognition and layout analysis are performed simultaneously.
  If the application has drawn some blocks incorrectly, it is often faster to edit the incorrect blocks using the block editing tools than to delete the blocks and draw them manually again. 
  In some cases automatic layout analysis quality may be improved by altering the page layout analysis options. To view the current layout analysis options: Read tab, Tools>Options menu.

• Using Blocks Templates

  If you are processing a large number of documents with an identical layout, you can create a block template (lmage> Save Blocks Template menu) (i.e. a standard "set" of blocks that con­forms to the layout of your document) and apply this tem­plate to all pages with the same layout you wish to recognize (lmage>Load Blocks Template menu).

• Improve the Recognition Quality of Double Page Images

  To increase recognition quality, split scanned images so that a batch page is created for each page of a double page image. Images can be split both automatically and manually. To split images automatically, before you add them to the batch check Split dual pages on the Scan/Open tab.
  To split images manually, select the Split image item in the Image menu. Deskewing, layout analysis and  recognition will then be performed separately for each page.

• Recognition Speed

  The recognition speed depends on different parameters: processor speed, size of RAM, type of image, etc.

  If you wish to process a large amount of documents with simple layout and good image quality, you can use a special recognition mode - Fast recognition. To turn on this mode, go to the Read tab in the Options dialog (menu Tools>Options) and select the Fast item in the Recognition mode group.

  On multiprocessor machines, you can increase the recognition speed of large batches by turning on the "Background recognition" mode (Corporate Edition only).

• Advanced Search in Recognized Documents

  You can search through all the recognized pages for words in all of their grammatical forms. The search pattern can be one or several words. To do this, select Advanced search in the Edit menu or press ALT+F3.

• Characters are Displayed Incorrectly

  If the ABBYY FineReader Text window does not display characters correctly (i.e. "?" or "□" can be seen in place of some or all of the letters), this means that your current font does not support your recognition language alphabet in full. Select a font that supports your entire recognition set (for example, Arial Unicode or Bitstream Cyberbit) on the Save tab (Tools>Options menu) in the Fonts group, and recognize the document again.

• Editing the Recognized Text in Microsoft Word

  If you prefer editing the recognized text in Microsoft Word rather than in the ABBYY FineReader text window, you may still have uncertain characters highlighted. On the RTF/DOC/Word XML tab in the Format Settings dialog, select the Highlight uncertain characters items in the Text settings group. The saved file will have all the uncertain characters highlighted with the same color that is used in the ABBYY FineReader Text window. You can change this color on the View tab of the Options dialog box (Tools>Options).

• Reducing Document Size

  If the recognized document contains many pictures, you can reduce the size of the document when saving in RTF, DOC, Word XML, PDF, HTML, or PPT formats: select the desired picture quality and format in the Picture settings group on the corresponding tabs in the Format Settings dialog.

• Editing Hyperlinks

  ABBYY FineFeader 8.0 can recognize hyperlinks to files, file-transfer protocols, Web sites and e-mail addresses. ABBYY FineReader will recognize the text of a hyperlink and recreate its destination address in the output document. Recognized hyperlinks are displayed in blue and underlined. You can edit the text and address of a hyperlink. You can also change the color of a hyperlink on the Read tab in the Options dialog.

• Saving batch settings

  To save batch settings in a file, click the Save Options button on the General tab (Tools>Options menu). A Save Options As dialog will open. Enter the file name. The following settings will be saved: the Read, Scan/Open, Save, and Check Spelling tab settings, as well as all Formats Settings dialog tab settings. User languages, user language groups and user patterns will also be saved in this file.

• User Languages and Language Groups

  In addition to the built-in languages and language groups, you may also create a new language or make up a new language group (from languages supported by ABBYY FineReader) and use it for recognition.

• Customize ABBYY FineReader Toolbars

  You can add/remove the buttons that provide access to any command of the application to/from the Standard, Image and Formatting toolbars in the Customize dialog (Tools>Customize menu).

• Document with dark borders

  Sometimes a scanned image may have dark borders. You can crop the unwanted black areas before running OCR.

  To crop the image:

  1. Select the Crop Image command from the Image menu.
  2. The image will be displayed in a Crop Image window and its borders indicated by black lines.
  3. Rest the mouse cursor on the color border and drag it to the desired location. Alternatively, you can rest the mouse cursor in one of the corners and drag it diagonally. The part of the image that will be removed will be displayed in gray. Click the Crop button.

  You can also use the Crop Image tool to reduce the image to a standard paper size, such as A4 or A5. In order to do this, select the desired paper size in the Crop to drop-down list and click Crop.