Key information for decision makers regarding upgrading to ABBYY FlexiCapture 9 Desktop & Distributed

ABBYY has recently released a new major version of their data capture software for single user and distributed multi-user environments.  Those of you on FlexiCapture 8 Professional are familiar with the name, but others using FormReader 6.5 Enterprise will be upgrading to their new version under the FlexiCapture name.  Refer to the last newsletter for more information on FlexiLayout.

The appearance of the user interface in FlexiCapture 9 for single user environments has been noticeably improved and there's an updated set of recognition engines to improve your OCR and ICR capabilities.  With this issue I'm providing links to information that has recently been released to relate to your general concerns about upgrading from your current environment.  Once reviewed, call us with any specific questions you have about your application environment.  This is especially important to FormReader 6.5 Enterprise customers as you'll need to update any scripts you've developed for massaging data within batches and for exporting data.  I'd advise you find time to focus on installing a 30 day trial and dedicate someone to writing equivalent scripts for your new environment.  The upside is that you can choose to write in VBScript or JavaScript syntax rather than the proprietary scripting language used in FormReader. 

The new code base for both single-user and multi-user installations comes on one CD or in one download and you choose your configuration upon installation.  This makes it easy to migrate project settings and batch information between the two environments for upgrades.  Customers with current support and maintenance agreements can upgrade at no additional cost.  If you're delinquent on your ABBYY MUA, contact us for an upgrade quote.  ABBYY is providing 32 hours of free upgrade support through May 31st, 2010; any support required afterwards will be chargeable, so please start planning for your upgrade accordingly.

Here's some documentation for you:

FlexiCapture_9.0_Brochure.pdf

FlexiCapture_9.0_ReleaseNotes_and_Key_New_Features.pdf

FlexiCapture_9.0_to_FormReader_6.5_Comparative_Matrix.pdf

FlexiCapture_9.0_vs_FlexiCapture_8.0_vs_FormReader_6.5.pdf

FlexiCapture_9.0_vs_FormReader_6.5_Enterprise_Edition.pdf

Migrating_from_FlexiCapture_8.0_to_FlexiCapture_9.0.pdf

Migrating_from_FormReader_6.5_to_FlexiCapture_9.0.pdf

All of this can be found on our DocuShare 6.5.2 site under FlexiCapture 9

If you are on a current ABBYY MUA program, your ongoing maintenance costs will stay the same and you can download the latest version from the FlexiCapture 9 downloads page.  If you'd like to try FlexiCapture 9, you'll need a 30 day trial license key so please contact us for a trail agreement with a description of your application.  We can show you how to setup your application and turn the results over to you to help get you started.

Panasonic scanners on sale through October

Sorry for the short notice, but through the end of October we will be selling two models of Mid-Volume Production Scanners that are featured on our homepage.  These are the Panasonic Color Scanner 4085CL and the Panasonic Color Scanner 4085CW.  They're fundamentally the same scanner, but the latter is faster.  Both have 300 page automatic document feeders and scan both sides at once.  Perhaps their best feature is they can drop out any color, not just red, green, and blue.  This means you can get a clear scan of pages on goldenrod, aquamarine, and lavender paper.  You can also combine two or three colors to achieve and optimum drop-out effect.

They're currently selling for well under typical manufacturer's cost until our cut-off time of 10/30/2009 at 6:00 PM CST.

Advantages of scanners over networked copiers

• Greater control of scan quality - scanners provide more control over the contrast and threshold of bitonal (black & white) and grayscale images as are generally used in archiving and data capture.
• Scan both sides at once rather than recirculate the document to scan the second side.  A 50 ppm scanner is much faster than a 50 ppm copier when scanning both sides.
• Image enhancement tools can be built in to some scanners, such as Kofax' Virtual ReScan (VRS) which cleans up the image and prepares it for clearer archiving.  This can be crucial to data capture application to get the best OCR and ICR results.
• Color drop-out allows you to scan pages received on color stock and eliminate the gray background you get when copying the pages.  This used to be done with special lamps, but now most scanners are full color and can drop out red, green, and blue backgrounds and print by virtue of filtering the color spectrum during the scanning process.  I've yet to see a copier that does this.  Note the advanced drop-out features of the Panasonic scanners currently on sale.