Instead, it reconstructs the original document using information embedded in the PDF when it was created. Adobe has the advantage here because it isn't performing any actual OCR on this kind of PDF. But Acrobat Pro far outclassed the competition when exporting Word and Excel documents from PDF files that were created by 'printing' to PDF from an application, not by scanning an image. Every other product-including the built-in OCR in Adobe Acrobat XI Pro -made dozens of errors reading the same document.įineReader Express far outclassed its Mac-based competition-Prizmo and Adobe Acrobat Pro-when performing OCR on scanned images and PDF files created by scanning in a paper document. ABBYY converted it with only an error in only one word, where the scanned image was too faint to read accurately. One test I ran on all the OCR apps that I looked at involved a scanned PDF of a legal form from a government web site. But ABBYY's recognition engine is so effective and accurate that you may not miss them. You also can't manually correct for distortions in the page image. OCR OperationsOne thing you can't do in the main window is correct any OCR misreadings, as you can with the rival Prizmo OCR app, or with ABBYY's high-powered Windows apps. I simply clicked on a button, selected a PDF file that I wanted to convert to a word-processing document, and waited a few seconds while the app displayed a progress bar, then opened its main window with the document image displayed, and prompted me to select a filename for the converted document. The Quick Tasks menu has a drop-down menus that lets you choose whether to get images from a file or a scanner, and buttons that let you select from four output formats: a text document, a worksheet, an HTML file, or a searchable PDF. Interface FineReader Express has the simplest and most straightforward interface I've found on any OCR app. FineReader Express doesn't include the touch-up and editing tools that the Windows-based Professional version has in profusion, but most home and SOHO users won't need them. That's because the OCR engine that ABBYY uses in all its products lets FineReader Express produce the same high-quality output produced by its feature-rich Windows-based siblings.

Mac users get only a feature-limited version called FineReader Express Edition for the Mac-but even this limited version outclasses any other OCR software we've tested for the Mac. ABBYY's FineReader OCR apps consistently get our Editors' Choice award, but only Windows users get to use the high-powered FineReader 11 Professional Edition.

Abbyy finereader express windows