USING ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 FROM THE KEYBOARD TO READ PRINT BY JOHN WILSON Copyright 2006 ******** TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword Restrictions Available Manual Formats ReadIRIS Versions Conventions Section 1: Introduction. What is OCR? Stages of OCR. Section 2: Before Installing ReadIRIS. Minimum Computer Specifications. Important Interface Software Note. Section 3: Types of Scanners. Main Scanner Standards. Which Scanner to Buy and Where From? Section 4: Downloading and Installing ReadIRIS Pro 6.0. Downloading the Demo Version. Installing the Demo Version. Installing the CD-ROM Version. Section 5: ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 Capabilities. Input and Output Formats. Page Types. Scanners Supported. Specialist User Dictionaries. Automatic Document Feeders (ADF). Document Colour Scanning Capabilities. Type Face and Size. Scanning Resolution. Languages Supported. Deferring Recognition by Batch Scanning. Scanning Your Signature. Page Analysis. Section 6: Customising ReadIRIS for Visually Impaired People. General and specific Customisation. Placing a Shortcut on Your Desktop from which to Launch ReadIRIS. Section 7: Automatic Mode. Pen-Picture of the ReadIRIS Screen. Example of automatic OCR Scanning of Single Pages of Print. Section 8: Using the OCR Wizard. Example of Scanning with the OCR Wizard. The Five OCR Wizard Steps. Section 9: Multipage Scanning Without an Automatic Document Feeder. Section 10: Scanning from Within Another Program Using the Connect Feature. Setting up the Connect Capability. Example of Direct Scanning Using the Connect Capability. Section 11: Deferring Recognition by Batch Scanning Multiple Pages. Examples of Multiple Deferred Recognition Scanning. Deferred Scanning and Immediate Recognition. Deferred Scanning with Later Recognition. Getting a Saved scan Image Recognised. Recognising a FAX file Section 12: ReadIRIS Help. Types of Help. Help Topics. Dialogue Help. Index Help. Appendix 1: Contacting the I.R.I.S. Company. Appendix 2: List of ReadIRIS Shortcut Keystrokes. Appendix 3: Registering ReadIRIS Pro 6.0. Free Demo Registration. Appendix 4: Speeding UP Slower Hewlett Packard Scanners. Appendix 5: Other Manuals by this Author. ******** Foreword This manual is written for the use of visually impaired scanner and scanner software users. It uses keyboard shortcuts instead of a mouse whenever possible and a screenreader and speech synthesiser instead of a monitor. The guide assumes that the user is familiar with both the operation of Windows and their own screenreader. Whilst ReadIRIS is a fully functional electronic scanning and editing system (and VI persons can use it as such), the emphasis in this manual will be on capturing text from a flatbed scanner in order to read print and will include adjusting parameters, loading scanned documents into editors/word-processors, saving scanned text files, etc. ******** RESTRICTIONS I have written this manual and tutorial for the use of blind and otherwise visually impaired computer users and/or their trainers. It is free of charge and only available from its author's Website and from no other distributer. No individual or organisation is permitted to sell copies of this tutorial either as a stand-alone tutorial or as an integral part of any other literary, software or training package. ******** AVAILABLE MANUAL FORMATS The manual is only available in ASCII text format, as a free download from the author's Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard This tutorial and guide has been created with a minimum of formatting, in plain text, so that any word-processor or text editor can read it. In this format it should also be suitable for any one to run it through an embosser but, with some embossing software, you may still wish to make some line spacing and heading format changes to suit yourself and your software. A simple construction such as this should also make reading by arrowing up and down in your word-processor less labour intensive than would be the case with columns, shorter lines, and the like. Colloquialisms, such as don't, haven't, doesn't, etc, have been avoided in this guide in order to make it easier to follow and understand via a speech package. Hopefully, any loss of conversationality and warmth will be compensated for by increased clarity. ******** ReadIRIS Versions This manual has been written for ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 which is the fully-featured, purchasable version of the software. You can buy it from either Xpansys Ltd or Prestige Network Ltd in the UK by phoning: Xpansys (Manchester): 0161 2329030. Prestige Networks (Thatcham): 01635 866888. When I phoned in September 2000, they advised me that to buy ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 directly from them, as a first-time OCR user, the price for an IBM compatable version would be œ196.89 plus œ3.80 for postage (VAT included). If you have a registered older version of ReadIRIS, the upgrade price is œ74.61 plus œ3.80 postage (VAT included). For your money you get the software on CD-ROM and a print manual. Note, however, that they do have special offers from time to time, e.g. they e-mailed me today (23 October) to say that they were now offering a three-piece software package for œ1.24. ReadIRIS sales/support replied to an e-mail I sent them advising that the version of ReadIRIS you would receive bundled free with the below scanners is likely to be Version 4.17. Since then several improvements have been made to the software but the main features which are missing from the bundled version are that there is no colour or multipage recognition and text recognition is slower. ReadIRIS currently ships with the newer Agfa and Hewlett Packard flatbed scanners, such as the Hewlett Packard ScanJet 3400C, 4300C, 5370C and several others, plus the Agfa SnapScan E40 and E50 and Compaq A1000. It is also not available from high street vendors. You can download a fully-featured try-and-die demo copy of ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 from the IRIS Website at: www.irislink.com See Section 4 below for how to do this. This demo will run for thirty days before it stops operating for you to evaluate its performance and suitability for your requirements. I have also written other manuals in respect of other leading scanning software programs, for instance, for TextBridge Pro 9, TextBridge Millennium, OmniPage Pro 10, TypeReader Pro 6.0, etc. ******** Conventions In the writing of this manual, terms have the following meanings: ALT F, A Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst still holding it down press the letter f, then release both and press the letter A. CONTROL S Means hold down the CONTROL key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter S and then release both. SHIFT END Means hold down the SHIFT key and whilst keeping it held down press the END key. ALT E, C, and press ENTER Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst keeping it held down press the letter E key, then release both and then press the letter C key followed by the ENTER key. When a key combination such as ALT P (for Process), R (for recognise) is suggested to go into the "Process" menu and run the "Recognise" menu option, the user may follow this method of operation or may prefer to ARROW up and down a menu and press ENTER. In this latter case, the keystrokes would be: press the ALT key, right ARROW to the "Process" menu heading, then ARROW down (or up) until the "Recognise" line is spoken, then press ENTER. ******** SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION What is OCR? OCR (optical character recognition) is computer software which allows you to scan and reproduce pictures and printed documents as image files, which can then be converted to text so they can be read with a screenreader and synthesiser and edited within ReadIRIS itself or by copying them into any text editor or word- processor. You can scan text and pictures or text only. You can keep the original layout of a document or choose to modify its layout, e.g. by having it decolumnised (which puts the left- column above the right-hand column so that your screenreder can read it intelligibly without it being interwoven). You can scan and recognise the print on ordinary letters, circulars, newspapers, FAX documents, photocopies, etc, and you can also import images from hand-held and flatbed scanners and from FAX modems. ReadIRIS can be used simply as a means of reading your black and white or colour mail, novels, bills, magazines, reports, etc, and/or as a means of capturing, editing and saving text on disk as an electronic filing system, in the same way as a sighted person in an office would. Stages of OCR The main stages ReadIRIS goes through (whether done automatically or manually) are: 1. Obtaining an image of the print or picture on a page or from a FAX MODEM. This is the "OCR Wizard", "Automatic OCR" or "Scan" stage. 2. Placing box-like lines around the various parts of the scanned image--Pictures, text and tables. These are areas of a scanned image on the screen, sometimes known as "zones". This is what ReadIRIS calls the "Windowing" step. 3. The textual images within the locations or zones is then recognised and converted to text. This is the "Recognising" process, where the layout, paragraphing and font type will be retained unless you specify otherwise. 4. Checking the accuracy of the recognised text and making any necessary corrections. This is the "Proofreading" stage but it is usually easier to turn this off and do any proofreading in your favourite word-processor. 5. The last step is the "Save As" stage where you save your work, which can be done in several different formats, such as Word, WordPerfect, text, PDF, Excel, etc. You can save pictures as well or have these omitted. ******** SECTION 2 BEFORE INSTALLING ReadIRIS Minimum Computer Specifications The minimum computer specifications you will need for ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 to run are: 1. A 486-based or Pentium PC. 2. A minimum of 16 Megabytes of RAM (memory). 3. MS Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT 4. 4. At least 30 Megabytes of free hard disk space. 5. A SCSI, parallel port or USB scanner attached to your PC (see "Types of Scanners" in Section 3 below). Improtant Interface Software Note It is important to understand the stages of the OCR process and the two types of software which will normally be running in tandem during scanning. Interface software (a type of large driver) is a program which is an integral part of the flatbed scanner's own scanning program. It acts as an intermediary between your mechanical flatbed scanner and your OCR scanning software. Therefore, there are three distinct elements in the scanning process: 1. the mechanical hardware flatbed scanner itself; 2. The interface software which came with the flatbed scanner; and 3. The Optical character recognition (OCR) software, such as ReadIRIS, which performs the text recognition and outputs the print for you to read. You will have to install the scanner interface software which comes with your scanner and ensure that the scanner is working prior to installing TextBridge Pro. To do this you will have to follow the instructions which came with your scanner set up software. These vary depending upon the scanner you have purchased. If you are new at this, you may be advised to recruit the help of a knowledgeable friend during the scanner interface software and Textbridge installations. Note: When running any scanning software which does not come with its own interface software (which includes most scanners), there will be steps in the middle of the scanning process which are controlled and dependent on the flatbed scanner's own software and not the OCR software itself. Whilst these intermediate steps will be similar in operation, you should note that there may be differences from those outlined in this manual. I have tested using a Microtek scanner which uses Microtek's own interface program, known as the Microtek Scan Wizard 32 Bit. The interface software you use, if you use a different flatbed scanner, may behave slightly differently, e.g. you may be using Hewlett Packard's own ScanJet interface program with HP scanners, the ScanWise interface software with Agfa scanners, etc. ******** SECTION 3 TYPES OF SCANNERS Main Scanner Standards For most Visually impaired persons I would recommend the use of a flatbed scanner. These are easier to use, scan a page in one pass and you do not have to see where you are moving the scanner head, as you do with a hand-held scanner. There are hundreds of different types of flatbed scanners but only a few scanner standards. Main scanner types SCSI--This is an older type of standard but which still works well if a good quality SCSI card is used. A card has to be fitted on your computer's motherboard and the scanner attached to this. Fitting such a card may be difficult for a visually impaired person and so one of the below alternatives may be preferable. Such scanners may also cost more than the other types. Parallel Port--These scanners run from your parallel port at the back of your PC. They just plug in and if you need to run your printer from the same parallel port you can normally just plug it into the back of the scanner and still use it as part of a chain of computer peripherals. USB (universal serial bus)--This is similar to parallel port in that it plugs into a socket in the back of your PC (if it is a modern computer and has one). This type of interface is quicker than parallel port and the scanners usually cost less. Note: Some scanner vendors now only supply USB scanners and some only supply scanners which work with Windows 98 upwards, not with Windows 95, so check this carefully before you buy. Which scanner to buy and Where From? If you know the type of scanner you like from past experience or have a knowledgeable friend to advise you, feel free to follow your own instincts. There is no one best flatbed scanner, only what you may prefer or what may work adequately enough for you, depending on your available budgetary wherewithal. However, for the uninitiated the following ideas may be of assistance. These facts were obtained in August 2000 directly from the manufacturers' UK suppliers but most of them will not sell directly to the public. If you want more information, phone them and if your local high street shop does not sell any particular scanner, ask the manufacturer where to buy from. Epson UK Ltd--The Epson 120 0Costs about œ150 for the USB version or œ190 for the SCSI version. This scanner is said to ship with the classic version of TextBridge 98. For more information phone: 01442 261144. Hewlett Packard--The HP 5200C is still available in some shops at about œ110 and can be obtained both in parallel port and USB versions. It runs on Windows 95, 98 and NT 4. It comes with OmniPage 8 Limited edition. The HP 5300C is one of the current models and comes with an older version of ReadIRIS, at a cost of around œ130. Both can be purchased from PC World. For more information phone: 020 75507900 or phone your local branch of PC World. Canon UK Ltd--The Canoscan FB300P costs around œ60 and is a 300 by 600 DPI scanner. The FB630P cost around œ80 and is a 600 by 1200 DPI scanner. They are both parallel port scanners and come with limited versions of OmniPage 5.1. For more information phone: 01737 220001. Agfa--The Agfa Snapscan 1212P is an older machine but is still selling. It comes with OmniPage limited and works from the parallel port. It costs about œ70and works with Windows 95, 98 and NT 4. Their newer basic spec scanner is the Agfa E40 at around œ150 but will only work with Windows 98 or above. It is USB only and is shipped with a version of ReadIRIS. For more information phone: 0870 0134271. Note 1: I have not tested the above scanners personally. They are simply manufactured by well-known and generally respected companies. As this is not an indorsement of any particular scanner, you must use your own judgement about which, if any, to buy. Note 2: Appendix 4 gives details on how to make an older Hewlett Packard scanner work faster by using an ISIS instead of a TWAIN driver. ******** SECTION 4 DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 Downloading the Demo Version 1. To obtain a demo copy of ReadIRIS 6.0, which will run for thirty days before becoming disabled, go to the following Internet address: www.irislink.com 2. Tab several times to the "English Server" link and press ENTER. 3. You will fall on the "OCR Software" page, when you can press the TAB key several times until you reach the "Download a Trial Version" link and press ENTER. 4. On the next page, TAB past all of the standard, repeated links which appear at the top of all of the pages, to a form which will ask you for your first name, second name, address, etc. complete this as normal (do not leave any fields uncompleted, even if you have to make something up, lie company name). You will get to a country combobox with United States highlighted, so keep pressing the U key at this point until you each the United Kingdom line, then TAB again. compleat the remaining fields. At the "Product" line, ARROW up or down to the product version you want, i.e. ReadIRIS 6.0 for Windows or ReadIRIS 6.0 for Mac, whichever you want, then TAB to "Download ReadIRIS" and press ENTER. 5. Another page then appears, which is the OCR software download page, where you TAB down to the "Download ReadIRIS 6.0 for Windows Download FTP" link and hit ENTER. 6. You will be presented with a "Save Program to Disk" or open it option. Just press ENTER on the default of save to disk. 7. You will be given the default name for the compressed file, which is "ri6eng.exe", but you can rename this if you want. I suggest that you just accept this filename by TABBING to "Save" and pressing ENTER. The download will now commence. 8. Keep checking your status or title lines to see the state of download progress. The download should take about one hour with a Pentium PC and a 56K MODEM. Installing the Demo Version Once downloaded, with your scanner connected and turned on, go to the compressed zip file with Windows Explorer or use the Windows Run facility and plot the path to the zip file or browse to it. Once you have located the "ir6eng.exe" file, say with Windows Explorer, press ENTER on it to get it installed. The installation with the standard install shield wizard will then start as follows: 1. You will be told that the program is unpacking and the Welcome screen will open up. You will be on "Next" so press ENTER. 2. The software licence agreement will appear, so TAB forward to "Yes" and press ENTER. 3. Complete the User Information Sheet with your name, if it is not already there, and enter your company name or make one up. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 4. Accept the default destination location for the program to install into by TABBING to "Next" and pressing ENTER. 5. You now have language and sample images which you can choose not to install if you wish but I would leave them checked and just TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 6. Installation will commence and take a minute or two and you will then be told that set up is complete. You are presented with two readme files to tell you about the program. It would be an idea to check these to read them at this stage. 8. TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER and the process is complete and the readme files will be opened in Notepad for you to read. 9. The location where the ReadIRIS executable program will have installed itself is: c:\ReadIRIS\ReadIRIS.exe which is where you will have to run it from, unless you have placed a shortcut on your Desktop from which to do this quickly (see section 6 for how to do this). Installing the CD-ROM Version To install ReadIRIS with your scanner connected to your computer and turned on: 1a. Place the CD disk in the CD-ROM drawer and close it. The setup.exe program should run automatically. 1b. If the setup.exe program does not run automatically, you can run it by Pressing Windows LOGO key followed by R (for run) and then by typing in the editfield which comes up: D:\autorun.exe (Assuming, of course, that your CD-ROM is on the d: drive). 2. Follow the on-screen instructions. They will be more or less the same as those in the "Installing the Demo Version" above, in steps 1 to 9. ******** SECTION 5 ReadIRIS Pro 6.0 CAPABILITIES Input and Output Formats ReadIRIS can import (accept from other sources) several formats such as tiff files, BMP files, pCx files, JPEG, etc, in black and white, grey scale and colour. You can then process and output these in many different formats. ReadIRIS can output directly to MS Word 97/2000, Wordpad, the clipboard and Excel via "Send To" and it can then automatically open such files in their native word-processor, e.g. Word 97. If you want to output to other formats, you can do so but you will have to use the "External File" option to open up more file formats. These additional formats will not open up in their native programs but will simply save to your default saving folder or to wherever else you specify that they should go, e.g. the floppy disk drive. These other formats include: ASCII, ANSI, RTF, various Word formats, various Excel formats, WordPro, AMIPro, Works, various WordPerfect formats, HTML, various Word Star formats, Display Right and Multimate. These options can be found by pressing ALT S (for settings) and ARROWING down to "Text Format" and pressing ENTER. Note: There is no standard Windows-type "Save As" command in the File Menu whereby to save and select your output text format. Page Types ReadIRIS does not have special, pre-loadable page types like those in OmniPage and TextBridge. So you cannot pre-set it to expect and therefore correctly deal with multiple columns, single columnar letters, spreadsheets, etc. The only way you can affect the way it treats the formatting on a page is by drawing zones around the text after scanning and before recognition. This, of course, is not feasible for most VI users. You therefore have to put up with the formatting which it delivers to you after the scan and hope for the best. I have e-mailed the creators of the program, I.R.I.S. (see Appendix 1 below), and suggested that they attend to this omission, plus several others, in future releases. Note: Most FAXES have a standard quality and fine quality output capability, so if you receive regular FAXES from a particular source, you may be able to ask the sender to choose the fine quality (200 DPI) setting before sending them to you. These will scan more easily and accurately than the standard quality. Scanners Supported ReadIRIS supports several Black Widow scanners, Artic scanners, using the ISIS or TWAIN standards, and almost any TWAIN compatible flatbed or sheetfeeder scanner of any other make, for instance, Epson, Hewlett Packard, Cannon, Agfa, Panasonic, Microtek, and many more. If you have problems with setting up your scanner, consult the scanner set up sections of the Readme files; also the scanner set up notes which came with your scanner and scanner interface software. If this does not resolve the problem, e-mail or phone the supplier or technical support line of your scanner manufacturer. Specialist User Dictionaries It is possible to create specialist user dictionaries with things like acronyms, proper nouns, scientific and technical words to load before a scanning session to improve recognition accuracy. However, if you are only scanning standard print material, such as newspapers, letters, novels, etc, this is not necessary. It is also unlikely that a visually impaired user would be able to see sufficiently to carry out the visual processes which are required to create such a specialist user dictionary. Nonetheless, if you do scan unusual material and you can get sighted help to create user dictionaries, you can find the instructions in the available online help files by pressing ALT H, press ENTER and CONTROL TAB to "Index" and type in something like "learn". Automatic Document Feeders (ADF) If you have a sheetfeeder you can scan the front sides of pages (odd pages) first and then the back of the pages (even pages) second and ReadIRIS will interleave them automatically so that they save in the correct order. You should know, however, that sheetfeeders often cost several times more than the basic scanner itself, so I will not go into this aspect of scanning here. You can find out more from the ReadIRIS help system by typing "ADF" into the Index search box. Document colour Scanning capabilities ReadIRIS is capable of scanning and recognising black and white pages, grey scale pages (shades of white and black at various levels of darkness between black and white) and colour pages. It can also recognise inverse video--white print on a black background. However, it is my experience that the better the black on white print the better will be the scanned result and reasonable black on white print will produce better recognised results than will grey scaled print and print in colour or black print on a coloured background. moreover, scanning in the grey scale and colour settings takes longer than black and white scanning. The grey scale feature is primarily for pages with poor quality or difficult to recognise text. You make colour, brightness, etc, settings changes from within the scanner tab by pressing CONTROL Q. Depending on the design and age of your scanner, you may or may not be able to colour scan. Type Face and Size ReadIRIS purports to be able to recognise fonts from 6 to 72 point in size (72 point is one inch), whether created on a laser printer, bubble jet, by FAX, draft dot matrix, etc. You should use the "Normal" print setting for all documents unless they are draft dot matrix, when that option should be selected by pressing ALT S (for Settings), F (for Font Type) ARROWING down to it and pressing ENTER. ReadIRIS can also deal with drop caps. You are recommended to change the resolution from 300 to 400 DPI if you are to scan print of 10 point or less. Scanning Resolution ReadIRIS scans all text at 300 dots per inch (DPI), which is invariably the recommended resolution for text scanning. It scans grey scale and colour images at a lower resolution. Languages Supported ReadIRIS can scan pages with many languages on them, including all American languages, all European languages, Japanese and simplified chinese. Deferring Recognition by Batch Scanning Batch scanning is the process of quickly image scanning a multipage document and then leaving the time-consuming recognition and formatting until later, when your away from your desk or while your doing something else not computer-related (see Section 11 for how to do this). Scanning Your Signature Whilst ReadIRIS cannot recognise hand-writing, it can scan it as an image and you can then save this as a graphic. You could then later open this graphic at the point on a page where you want your signature to appear and it would be pasted in for printing or saving with the letter. To do this scan a page which contains only your signature, Press ALT F (for file) and G (for graphics) and give the graphic image a filename, select an image format such as tif, etc, and press ENTER on "Save". To open the graphic signature, use ALT F, O, and type your graphic filename in, followed by TABBING to "Open" and pressing ENTER. Page Analysis The "Analyze Page" option in the Process Menu makes ReadIRIS decompose (breakdown and do zoning/windowing) pages automatically. Having this option on is recommended for visually impaired people, as drawing lines around text, table and picture areas on the screen will not be easy, particularly with complex pages. Page analysis even automatically corrects pages which were put onto the flatbed with up to a five per cent skew on them. For skew correction of more than this, use the "Deskew Page" feature in the Process Menu. ******** SECTION 6 CUSTOMISING ReadIRIS FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE (As customisation is not essential for ReadIRIS to function for visually impaired people, but is rather desirable for maximising accessibility and simplicity, you may wish to jump straight to Section 8 and run a scan of a page in automatic mode before tackling customisation. That way you will have an idea what the reasons for customisation may be. Then come back to this section and make any suggested changes which suit your needs. However, have a quick look at this now for a general idea of what is proposed.) In order to enhance ReadIRIS's performance as a print scanner for visually impaired people, make the screen less cluttered and make it easier to use, you may find some of the below suggestions worthwhile. General and Specific Customisation 1. Press ALT S (for settings) and: A. ARROW down to "Page Analysis" and ensure that this is checked. This will ensure that ReadIRIS automatically does the zoning, limited page deskewing and page decomposition for you. These are not easy to do manually if you cannot see the screen clearly. B. ARROW down once more to "Page Deskewing" and check this to ensure that if a page is placed on the scanner at an angle of more than 5 per cent, it can still be scanned and straightened up automatically. C. Unselect "Enable Wizard on Toolbar", as this is not needed with keyboard access. D. Uncheck Enable Wizard on Start Up", as this is best invoked manually, if you want to use it. You will probably prefer to use automatic scanning rather than the wizard when you become familiar with the program. 2. Press ALT V (for view) and: A. If it is possible for you to do your proofreading/spell- checking in the ReadIRIS program (if your sight is good enough), you may wish to enable the "200 Per Cent" option in the View Menu by pressing ENTER on it. This will make the view on the screen twice as large as normal. However, it is probably best to do your spell-checking in your word-processor. B. ARROW to "Display Document in Colour" and deselect this if it is of no use to you or if you can see black on white better. 3. Press ALT L (for learn) and ARROW up to "Interactive Learning" and press ENTER on it to deselect it. This will skip the Font matching/user dictionary/proofreading step which requires good sight and is not particularly screenreader-friendly. Please note, however, that when using the OCR Wizard method of scanning this "Interactive Learning" feature is automatically enabled again. 4. Unfortunately, ReadIRIS does not feature a fully-automatic orientation feature. If you scan a page upside down, it is probably as quick to rescan it as to use the "Upside Down" feature. However, if you have scanned several pages and then discover that they were upside down or sideways on, you can get them re-recognised the correct way up by pressing ALT V (for view) and then ARROWING up to "Turn Upside Down", "Rotate Right" or "Rotate Left". You then Press ALT P, R, to get the same pages re-recognised without having to rescan them. 5. In the File Menu (ALT F) there are three options where you can save settings and then reload them. Therefore, if you change any settings and want to load these back in for use from time to time, you can do so. Your personalised settings files will be saved in the C:\readiris\ directory/folder and be given a .ibt extension. If, alternatively, you want to make changes to your ReadIRIS default settings which you want to have as your own standard settings every time you launch ReadIRIS, e.g. have your scans automatically opened up for reading in Wordpad instead of Word, save your changed settings by pressing ALT F (for file) and then ARROWING to "default Settings" and pressing ENTER. So if, for instance, you would like all future scans, by default, to be done in grey scale quality scanning and then opened up for reading in Wordpad, you would: A. Press CONTROL Q and TAB to the "Black/White" default scanning line and then ARROW down to "Grey Scale", followed by TABBING to "OK" and pressing ENTER. B. Then press ALT S (for settings), T (for text format) and TAB to "Send To" and ensure that it is checked. Then TAB once to a list of applications that the file can be sent to/opened in automatically and ARROW down to "Wordpad" and press TAB to "OK" and then press ENTER. C. To compleat the process and make these your future default methods of scanning, press ALT F (for file) and ARROW up to "Save Default Settings" and press ENTER. You will drop on an "OK" button so press ENTER to finish the process. Placing a Shortcut on Your Desktop from which to Launch ReadIRIS To place a shortcut icon on your Desktop for quick and easy launching of ReadIRIS: 1. Press Windows LOGO key followed by the letter S, then press T. 2. Then press CONTROL TAB to the 'Start Menu Programs Property Sheet'. 3. You will and on the 'Add' button, so press ENTER. Then tab to the 'Browse' button and press ENTER. 4. You will be asked for the executable filename, so type in "ReadIRIS.exe" and then TAB to the list of folders on your c: drive underneath the 'Look In' line. Press R until "ReadIRIS" is spoken and then press ENTER. 5. Now press R until "ReadIRIS.exe" is spoken. 6. Press the TAB key to the 'Open' option and then press ENTER. 7. Then TAB to the 'Next' button and press ENTER. You are asked where you want to place the shortcut, so ARROW up to 'Desktop' and then press TAB to 'Next' and press ENTER. 8. You are asked to select a name for the shortcut and given "ReadIRIS.exe" as an option. If you want to change this, just type over it, e.g. with "Read IRIS 6" and then press TAB to the 'Finish' button and press ENTER. 9. Now press TAB to the 'OK' button and press ENTER to complete the procedure. 10. You can now, in the normal Windows way, go to this shortcut on your Desktop by pressing Windows LOGO key M followed by R until "ReadIRIS Pro 6.0" is spoken and then press ENTER to launch it. ******** SECTION 7 AUTOMATIC MODE With automatic mode you need only have minimum input from yourself to complete the scanning process. You just start scanning and then the resulting text is opened up for you in your word-processor. All the intervening steps are automated for you, including page analysis, and all the other default settings are used or those which you have changed to your normal requirements. Interactive learning is disabled, so that there will be no stopping for user dictionaries, font and word training, etc. Pen-Picture of the ReadIRIS screen With the ReadIRIS screen maximised (ALT SPACEBAR M), the screen contains the following features. At the top is the standard Title Bar which has the word "ReadIRIS" on it and which, after you have scanned a page, will also contain the name of the type of scanning interface you are using and will show how many pages have been scanned and which page you are currently on. Below this a typical Main Menu appears with sub-menus of "File", "Edit", etc. Underneath this, down the side, comes several buttons which you can click on to perform basic processes but you do not have to use these as there are menu commands for these, e.g. AutoSelect, "Scan", "Sort", "Draw Text", "Recognise" and "Analyze Page". There are also legends showing which features have been selected by yourself (or the defaults if you have not changed these), such as "British English", "Deskew Page", "Page Analysis", "Actual Size", etc. The majority of the screen is available for the scanned image/text to be displayed. Example of Automatic OCR Scanning of Single Pages of Print With your scanner switched on before you boot your computer, you use Automatic mode OCR by: 1. Press ALT P (for process) and then A (for automatic). 2. A "scan" and "preview" dialogue will come up and you will be on scan. As previewing is of little use to visually impaired people, I suggest that you press ENTER on "Scan", which you will already be on, to get the page scanned immediately. Note: The above step 2 is where the scanner interface software comes in, so there may be slight differences in what you get at this stage, depending upon the scanner and interface software you are using (see "Important Interface Software Note" in Section 2). 3. The page will be scanned and then automatically opened up in Word 97 or Word 2000 or whatever other word-processor or text editor you choose when you make any necessary changes to your settings. You can change the send to/output application in Settings, Text Format, then TAB to the line underneath "Send To" and ARROW up and down the several output options. Note: At the stage where the scanner is running, your screenreader is likely to stammer because the scanning process takes up all the processor's capacity, leaving little for your speech system. 4. You can, in the normal way, now read, edit, spell-check and/or save this scanned document as a Word document or in any other format which Word supports. 5. If you then close Word (or your chosen word-processor) you will find that ReadIRIS is still running and you can then scan more pages or close it down. Note 1: If the page is blank or the text too faint to be "seen" ReadIRIS will generate a "No characters were detected" message and you will have to press ENTER on the OK button to proceed. Note 2: If you press ENTER on "Preview" in step 2 above, you may find another menu bar where you can make other setting changes for such as transparencies, shiny paper, to look at your scanner set up, etc, but the existence of this and what it offers will depend on the interface software which came with your particular scanner. Note 3: If your first scan is not good enough, you can quickly change some of the scanner settings by pressing CONTROL Q and attending to brightness, resolution, black and white, grey scale, colour adjustments, etc. ******** SECTION 8 USING THE OCR WIZARD The ReadIRIS OCR Wizard takes you step-by-step through the main stages of the scanning process, letting you make choices about the type of page you are scanning as you go. This gives you a semi-automatic way to scan, allowing you to make some settings choices as you go but not all settings can be changed; whereas automatic mode is fully automated, although you must set it up in advance. Example of Scanning with the OCR Wizard The OCR Wizard can be set to load as soon as ReadIRIS is launched or it can be called up as and when you wish to use it. To have the OCR Wizard invoked when you load ReadIRIS, go into the Settings Menu with ALT S, and ARROW up to "Enable Wizard on Start Up" and ensure that this is checked by pressing ENTER on it (it will be checked by default). To disable it and therefore be able to use manual or automatic mode, press ENTER on it to uncheck it. You can also use the OCR Wizard without having it checked in the Settings Menu by pressing ENTER on "OCR Wizard" in the Process Menu or by using the shortcut keystroke of CONTROL Z. The Six OCR Wizard Steps To scan with the OCR Wizard, with your scanner switched on before your computer, you would: 1. In step 1, You have to press CONTROL Z to start the OCR Wizard (if you do not have it enabled on start up). All you get here is an "Enable Wizard on Start Up" checkbox, so check or uncheck this by pressing the SPACEBAR, whichever you prefer. I would recommend having this unchecked (and unchecked in the Settings Menu as well), as when you get more confident with this software, you will want to use the quicker and more powerful and flexible automatic mode (see Section 7 above). Then press ENTER on "Next". 2. In step 2, TAB forward to a two choice selection list and ensure that "Scanner" is highlighted, unless you only want to have an existing scanned image or FAX image recognised, when you would ARROW down to "Image File". Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 3. In step 3, you can accept the current scanner settings or change any of them. Look through the settings here (you may have to do this in your screenreader's navigation or mouse mode) and if you wish to change any of them do so, e.g. in "Resolution" ARROW up and down the alternatives but remember the default of 300 DPI is almost always recommended for scanning normal black text on a white background--change it to 350 or 400 DPI if you are scanning text less than 10 point and this does not scan well at 300 DPI. Other options in this dialogue box which you may wish to change by first pressing ENTER on the "Change" button are: A. Scanner type and model will be shown and you can Tab to "Config" if you wish to make any changes to this or set things up for a new scanner. B. TAB forward to the type of print you are scanning and black and white is likely to be selected. You can ARROW down to grey scale and colour. Use grey scale for poor quality print such as newspapers, photocopies, FAXES, etc. If you cannot see to determine the quality, type or colour of print you want to scan, and if a first scan is not very good, try scanning again but this time with grey scale rather than black and white and, lastly, try the colour setting as the page may have colour print on it or it may have a coloured background. C. TAB again to "Auto Exposure" and leave this checked, as it makes ReadIRIS determine what level of lightness or darkness setting is best for a particular document. However, if you uncheck this, two more options will appear in this dialogue box called "Contrast" and "Brightness". in this case, ReadIRIS will no longer try to make contrast and brightness decisions itself but will let you make these by using your right and left ARROW keys to move the levels from their mid value of 50 per cent to where you like. Moving left tells ReadIRIS to expect to scan a light page and therefor darkens the scan and right does the opposite. D. TABBING on moves to the "Invert" button, which is unchecked by default (standard). If you check this, ReadIRIS will be able to scan white text on a black background and will also output this as white text on a black background. Note, however, that the resulting text may not be readable by some screenreaders. E. After making any changes, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. You will go back to the scanner settings dialogue, so press ENTER on "Next" to move onto the next stage. 4. In step 4, you are in the dialogue to set the document language. If you have more than one language set up, you can ARROW to the one you want. Otherwise, you will just have your default language showing, e.g. British English. You may only be able to observe what is in this dialogue box by going into navigation or mouse mode. Just TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 5. Instep 5, you are asked how you want to save or format the scanned and recognised text. Again there is a "Change" button as in step 3 above and if you want to change any of the currently set up options, press this and make your changes. Ensure that "Send To" is selected if you want to have the document automatically opened up in a word-processor or spreadsheet package. Of particular interest here are: A. The "Format" option shows which word-processor, spreadsheet, etc, the recognised text will be output to you in, e.g. Word 97, Excel, Wordpad, the clipboard, etc (you can ARROW through these). If you do not have MS Word and are not scanning a spreadsheet, select Wordpad which all versions of Windows from Windows 95 come with; otherwise, just opt for the clipboard if you want to immediately paste the scanned text elsewhere. B. The "Create Body Text" button should be checked, so that the scanned text will not be formatted by ReadIRIS but rather be output as continuous text and the formatting left to you in your word-processor. C. Press ENTER on "OK" to return to the dialogue box and then ENTER on "Next". 6. In step 6, you are now told that all options are set and you are on the "Go" button, so press ENTER to start the scan with your new settings. You will now be in the Scan or preview dialogue and the "Preview" button will be highlighted, so press TAB once and then press ENTER to get the scanner running. As the learn mode is enabled in this type of scanning, you will have to skip this proofreading/font matching/user dictionary creation stage by pressing ALT F (for finish) and the scan job will then open up in your selected word-processor. If you want to experiment with previewing and/or proofreading, of course, do so but most visually impaired people are unlikely to be able to benefit from these facilities, as they require good sight to operate and are not user-friendly to most screenreaders. Note: Part way through step 6 above is where the scanner interface software comes in (the "Preview" and Scan" stage), so there may be slight differences in what you get at this stage, depending upon the scanner and interface software you are using (see "Important Interface Software Note" in Section 2). ******** SECTION 9 MULTIPAGE SCANNING WITHOUT An AUTOMATIC DOCUMENT FEEDER The only way ReadIRIS normally contemplates doing multipage scanning is via an automatic document feeder. However, you can do this manually as follows. Example of Manual Multipage Scanning Switch your scanner on before booting your computer and: 1. With page 1 on the scanner, press CONTROL S. 2. Remove page 1 and place page 2 on the flatbed, then press CONTROL S again. 3. Continue in this way until the whole document has been scanned to an image. 4. Next perform the recognition process on all pages simultaneously by pressing CONTROL R. 5. The document will open up in your word-processor for reading, editing, saving, etc. This may take some time if you have scanned many pages, as the recognition stage of OCR tends to be the most time-consuming (see Deferring Recognition by Batch Scanning Multiple Pages, in Section 11). ******** section 10 SCANNING FROM WITHIN ANOTHER PROGRAM USING THE CONNECT FEATURE (It is my opinion that scanning in ReadIRIS using this procedure is not worth the extra trouble it takes, especially when an ordinary scan can recognise text and then automatically open up your preferred word-processor with the scanned page pasted in for you. The steps you have to go through with the connect feature are more laborious but if you want to give it a go to make up your own mind on this, here is how it basically works.) To scan from within another software package--such as letters, reports, newspapers, etc, from within Word, or spreadsheet cells from within Excel--you should enable the connect capabilities of ReadIRIS. Setting Up the Connect Capability 1. Launch ReadIRIS , select your scanner and save the default settings by: A. Launch ReadIRIS as normal. B. Press ALT S (for settings). C. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 2. Then for Word 2000 and Word 97, start Word, open the document "conwrd97.dot" in the normal way, which can be found at: c:\readiris\conwrd97.dot 3. You may get a warning message about viruses and macros. Just TAB to "Enable" and press ENTER. 4. The command "Scan Text" will be added to the File Menu. 5. In future, if you want to scan a page when Word is already running, you just press ENTER on the "Scan Text" File Menu command. The File Menu command if you have set things up in a spreadsheet would be "Scan Table". Note: for how to do this with other programs, such as Word6, Word 95, Excel, etc, see the readme notes or the online help system (for how to use online help, see section 12). Example of Direct Scanning Using the Connect Capability Switch your scanner on before your computer and: 1. Launch ReadIRIS first, as it cannot run in the background. 2. Then launch your application, e.g. Word 97, WordPerfect, Windows Wordpad, etc. 3. In your application, press ALT F (for file) and ARROW up to "scan Text" and press ENTER. 4. If the scan does not start immediately, you will be asked some questions to answer before this will start. If so, answer these in the way which suits your scanning requirements, e.g.: A. You will drop on "Create Body Text", so press SPACEBAR on this to select it, if not already selected. B. TAB to "Retain Word and Paragraph Formatting" and leave this unselected. C. TAB to "Recreate Sauce Document" and leave this unselected. D. TAB to "Automatic Recognition" and select "Entire Page". E. "Preview Manual Windowing" should remain unselected. F. TAB to "Verify Text" and leave this unselected. G. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 5. After a few seconds the "Scan" button will be highlighted, so press ENTER. The scanner will run and you will get a message "Continue and Insert Recognised Text" and you will be on the "OK" button, so press ENTER. 6. The scanned page will be pasted into your word-processor at the point of the cursor for reading, editing, saving, etc. ******** SECTION 11 DEFERRING RECOGNITION BY BATCH SCANNING multiple PAGES To save processing time you can scan long documents to image files without waiting for them to be recognised immediately on a page-by-page basis as usual. You can then have them recognised immediately in one block after you have scanned all pages in or later when you are at lunch, have gone home at night, etc. This can be a useful time-saver, particularly if you have a slow computer. Examples of Multiple Deferred Recognition Scanning Deferred Scanning and Immediate Recognition Switch your scanner on prior to booting your computer and: 1. Press CONTROL S followed by ENTER and the first page will be scanned to an image. 2. Press CONTROL S again and ENTER and the second page will be scanned to the end of the above image. 3. Continue in this way for all pages. 4. Press CONTROL R to have all of the above pages recognised simultaneously and then automatically opened up for reading, editing, spell-checking and saving in your chosen word-processor, spreadsheet or Windows Wordpad. Deferred Scanning with Later Recognition 1. Follow steps 1 to 3 above. 2. Press ALT F (for file) followed by P for "Save All Pages as Image" and press ENTER. 3. Give the image file a filename in the editfield you fall in, e.g. report1. 4. TAB to "Files of Type" and accept the default image file format or ARROW up and down to the one you want. 5. TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. The file will be saved to your normal save folder, e.g. My documents if you make this the default. Getting a Saved Scan Image Recognised You can leave the saved image file at this stage and come back to it later, e.g. when you are about to go to lunch, home, etc, and then just before you leave the office, tell ReadIRIS to start the recognition stage, which is generally the most time-consuming part of the OCR process. 6. To get the image file recognised, Press ALT F (for file) and O (for open) and type in the filename you saved your image scan under, e.g. report1. 7. The image file will load and all you now have to do is press CONTROL R to start the recognition. 8. The image will be converted into text and output in your word- processor as usual. It should be ready for reading, editing, etc, when you re-enter the office, if enough time has elapsed for the complete recognition to have taken place. Recognising a FAX file To get a FAX image or any other imported image recognised and output as text or pictures, follow the same procedure as above from step 6 onwards. ******** SECTION 12 ReadIRIS HELP The ReadIRIS help system provides general and specific help topics on how to use the program from a monitor and mouse point of view. However, it will provide an insight into what sighted people chiefly use ReadIRIS for--not reading print but, rather, capturing it for editing, reprinting, creating a filing system by saving documents after scanning them, etc. The ReadIRIS help system is very user-friendly as it is self-contained and does not use Adobe PDF files. Types of Help Help topics If you press ALT H (or F1) and ENTER on "Help Topics", you will land in the "Contents" TAB and will be presented with a hierarchical list of help topic books. These are "Introducing OCR", "Recognising Documents" . . down to "IRIS". ARROWING down to any one of these "books" and then pressing ENTER will open up another list of topics, which are subsections of the main topic. ARROWING down and highlighting any one of these sub-topics and then pressing ENTER will read out a full page of help text (press the PAGE DOWN key to hear the next page) or bring up yet another list of sub-sub-topics to open and then display . After listening to the help text, press the ESCAPE key to close help. Some of the help screens have related help topic buttons at the bottom of them which you can press your TAB key to move through and then ENTER to open any one of them. In the above "Contents" sheet there are also "Close" buttons to close an opened book of topics and "Print" to have the contents of a displayed topic sent to your printer. Dialogue Help When in a dialogue box you can put the system focus on the specific item you want details about (ARROW OR TAB to it) and then press F1, when a short help message explaining what this item in the dialogue box is for will be spoken. Press ESCAPE to return to the dialogue. Index Help If you want to know what a particular technical word or phrase means, press ALT H, press ENTER on "Help Topics" and then press CONTROL TAB to move to the "Index". You will land in an editfield in which you can type the word or phrase you want help on. You then press TAB to a list of help topics containing that word, ARROW up and down these to the one you want and then press TAB to the "Display" button. Pressing ENTER on this will either bring up a page of help information or take you to another list of sub- topics to select from and then press TAB to "Display" again and press ENTER for the information. You may have to press the F6 key to get the help text spoken. Press ESC to leave help. For example, with the focus on the Index tab, type in the editfield "Installation" (without the quotes) and then TAB to the list of found matches. "Installation" will be there, so TAB again to "Display" and press ENTER. You will be given installation instructions for installing the connect capability of ReadIRIS. You may find obtaining help information easier in the "Index" tab rather than in either of the main help "Contents" or "Find" facilities. If so, you can view everything in the help file simply by not typing anything in to the first field you drop in when you enter the index, instead just TAB once and you will be at the very beginning of every topic which the index covers. ARROW down this alphabetical list and if any topic interests you, press ENTER on it to have it opened up and read to you. The Help Menu also contains an option to register your copy of ReadIRIS online to obtain future advice of new releases and you can always go to the ReadIRIS Website for information, FAQs (answers to frequently asked questions) and many more facilities. It is at: www.irislink.com ******** APPENDIX 1 CONTACTING THE IRIS (IMAGE RECOGNITION INTEGRATED SYSTEMS) COMPANY IRIS have four contact offices, the HQ in belgium, one in France and two in the US. Additionally, they have two distributors in the UK. Only the Belgium and one of the US branches will be mentioned here for technical support purposes. After these, details of the two UK distributors will be given. To contact the Belgium HQ branch: Phone: +32-10-45 13 64 FAX: +32-10-45 34 43 E-mail sales: sales@irislink.com E-mail support: support@irislink.com To contact the US branch: Phone: +1-561-395 7831/800-447-4744 FAX: +1-561-347-6267 E-mail: support@irislink.com E-mail sales: sales@irislink.com Postal address: IRIS, 1600 N.W. Boca Raton Bld Suite 20, Boca Raton, Fl. 33432, USA. Website: www.irislink.com (for upgrades and information). For registered users of ReadIRIS there are special offers and free technical support: European phone hotline: +32-10-45 13 64 during working hours. US phone hotline: +1-561-395 7831 during working hours. Fax: +1-561-3476267 There are only two distributors of ReadIRIS in the UK and they are: 1. Xpansys Ltd, Rotherford House, Manchester Science Park, Manchester, M15 6GG. Phone: 0161 2329030. E-mail: info@expansys.co.uk Website: www.xpansys.co.uk 2. Prestige Network Ltd, Unit 9, Thatcham Business Village, Thatcham, Barkshire, RG19 4LW. Phone: 01635 866888. E-mail: sk@prestigenetwork.com Website: www.prestigenetwork.com ******** APPENDIX 2 LIST OF READIRIS SHORTCUT KEYSTROKES (Whilst most of the below shortcut keystrokes are usable by visually impaired people, a few of these may not be practical but they have, nonetheless, been included for completeness, e.g. if you cannot see to highlight multiple page documents in the ReadIRIS editing window, the CONTROL T (for shuffle) and PAGE UP to go back a page commands may be of little use to you. Thus, I recommend that you do your text editing in your favourite text editor or word-processor.) Press F1--To enter the Help Menu. Press ALT BACKSPACE--To undo your last action, e.g. a mistaken deletion. Press ALT F4--To shut down ReadIRIS. press PAGE UP--To go to the previous page of a multipage document scan in the ReadIRIS text window. Press PAGE DOWN--To go to the next page in a multipage scan. Press CONTROL 1--To return to the normal size of the document on screen. Press CONTROL 2--To magnify the size of a document on screen twofold. Press CONTROL 5--To reduce the size of the document on screen to half of its normal size. Press CONTROL A--To select all (the whole document). Press CONTROL C--To copy selected text to the clipboard. Press CONTROL D--To enter the font dictionary. Press CONTROL F--To make a whole document fit into the current window. Press CONTROL I--To obtain a readout of your current scanning settings (you may have to go into your screenreader's navigation or mouse mode to access this). Press CONTROL J--To adjust a document image without having to rescan it, e.g. to despeckle it, change the brightness, etc, after which it should be re-recognised. Press CONTROL L--To change the default (normal) language ReadIRIS uses. Press CONTROL N--To clear the screen ready for a new scan. Press CONTROL O--To display a document in colour. Press CONTROL Q--To bring up the scanner options dialogue box, where you can change scanner settings such as page colour scanning, resolution, default scanner selected, etc. Press CONTROL R--To start recognition of a manually or multipage document scan. Press CONTROL S--To start a manual scan or a multipage scan, when continued pressing of CONTROL S followed by ENTER will scan as many pages into one document file as you like. Get the resulting pages recognised as text with the CONTROL R command. Press CONTROL T--To shuffle/sort text, table and picture windows into a different order. Press CONTROL V--To Paste cut or copied text from the clipboard to wherever you want it. Press CONTROL W--To fit the document into the full width of the window. Press CONTROL X--To cut text (move it) to the clipboard. Press CONTROL Z--To run a scan with the OCR Wizard. ******** APPENDIX 3 REGISTERING READIRIS 6.0 Free Demo registration You can use the Registration Wizard in the Register Menu to register your thirty-day demo of ReadIRIS, so that they can keep you up to date with any new ReadIRIS infirmation or new releases. The Wizard will either take you onto the Internet to do this via Internet Explorer or generate a FAX or postal registration form for you to complete with your personal information. The Wizard is invoked by pressing ALT R (for register) and pressing ENTER on "Registration Wizard". You may have to go into navigation/mouse mode to select your choice of registration methods. ******** APPENDIX 4 SPEEDING UP OLDER HEWLETT PACKARD SCANNERS {The below is an e-mail I received from a very helpful American Web surfer. As I do not own an Hewlett Packard scanner, I cannot test these instructions but the authors, bill Cammeron and his unnamed friend, seem to know what they are talking about. I have reproduced Bill's e-mail instructions verbatim (except for changing some American to English spellings and some spacing) for your consideration. If you require more guidance or explanation, please contact ReadIRIS technical support. However, please note that most of what Bill says applies to other companies' software rather than ReadIRIs, so there may be no equivalent methods of improvement with ReadIRIS.} Bill's Message "here are instructions for you to publish for others. author has no problem with sharing. before you read this document if you have text bridge millennium remember that ises is directly supported and best instructions for installing ises drivers for your hp scanner can be obtained from text bridge tec support. it will require using tec support because it will not automatically load ises driver like it did in earlier versions of text bridge. using the ises driver should cut scan times in half. read on what a hp 6200 scanner user says below about how he picked up speed despite his scanner not being listed in the list of supported scanners for the ises driver provided. plus steps for omni page 10 with the ises driver set up. I've done a little investigating and experimenting since Friday night regarding this subject and here is what I found. First, I found that I do have a PIXTRAN folder within the Windows folder with tons of drivers, including a SCANJET and a SCANJETX. However, only a few of these appear to have come from OmniPage 10. I have had previous versions of OmniPage on this machine, so some may have come from a previous version. of course all this means little to a new user. new users can though create their own folder and place the proper driver into it if necessary. because most h p scanners now being maid are not scl most ocr packages install twain instead. most newer hp models now use twain by default even if they are scl scanners like the 6200 models, all three of them, and the 6300 series. only scl scanners from hp can improve performance when using the ises drivers. hp scanners with no scl are better sticking to twain like the 4200 model. the generic ises driver that comes with ocr packages is best suited to models, 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p, 2c, 2cx, 3c, 4c, 6100 and 5200 models. remember you may also need to buy a adaptec p c i scsi card to get older hp scanners working in 98. 98 p n p will recognize the adaptec 2906 p c i card. plug in scanner and 98 p n p will load its driver as well. much easier installed than h p with out adaptec card. However, it appears that the SCANJET.PXW driver came from TextBridge Millennium. it is also in omni page 9 for certain. also in type reader 5 for certain. text bridge millennium also does not install ises for h p scanners by default, no it picks twain like omni page 10 does. The SCANJET.PXW is on the installation CD-ROM but it is contained within the DATA.CAB compressed cabinet file so it would need to be extracted. TextBridge Millennium as Ii installed it uses the TWAIN driver, even though it contained the above-mentioned ISIS driver. i would think these drivers are included in the downloadable demo of text bridge millennium. That might be a cheap way to get them for someone who doesn't have the driver already. I tried the ISIS driver, SCANJET.PXW, with OmniPage 10, even though my scanner was not mentioned. There were a number of HP scanners mentioned such as the 5200 and 6100 that made me think it was worth a try. At this point, the ISIS driver does seem to work and it is definitely faster. It seemed to work fine with the USB interface. also of note even text bridge 98 ises driver supported u s b. By the way, when you select a scanner from within OmniPage 10, a screen of information appears that lists the scanners that are supported. Also, to get a scanner driver installed, you must use Caere's SCAN manager in CONTROL Panel and you must "ADD Scanner. Also, even though I could select that option with the arrow keys, I had to route and click the mouse pointer to actually execute it. I also tried the SCANJETX.PXW driver and it did not work. It appears to support fewer scanners than the SCANJET.PXW driver, though, so this makes sense. It eventually caused a system crash. end of story of a 6200 hp scanner user." "omni page tech support told me it is in their in version 10, just hidden away like it was in version 9. can not seem to find it. though it is possible the omni page tech could have been confused and may have remembered it was hidden in version 9 and maybe 10 does not have the driver. if not a old version of omni page or a copy of text bridge can solve that problem. here are the instructions for doing exactly that. they do conclude you have driver in the proper folder as discussed above. Hi john, Here is what I did to add the ISIS driver for my HP 6200C to OmniPage 10. This assumes that the driver already exists on the hard disk. I believe my ISIS drivers came from a version of TextBridge. Go to Settings, then Control Panel. Arrow down to Caere Scan Manager and press ENTER. You should now see a list of the scanners that have been installed. There may only be one scanner. There is one additional item at the top of the list that says "Add Scanner." Going to the "view" menu and selecting "list" will make this box respond to the UP and DOWN ARROW keys. You can view the properties of an installed scanner, delete it or rename it as well from the FILE menu when that scanner is selected. However, to add a new scanner, I found I had to double-click the "add Scanner" item with the mouse and a wizard was started. When the wizard starts, I found a list of scanners. This is a tree view, so as I moved through the list of scanners, the right side changed. The first scanner on the list was "generic". With "Generic" selected, I tabbed one time to a list of choices for "generic," and I selected the ISIS option. I then tabbed to "next" and pressed ENTER. The next step asked me to name the scanner, and gave me options to make that scanner the default with "yes" or "no" radio check boxes. I chose "no" and pressed "NEXT." The next box lists all of the ISIS drivers. I chose SCANJET.PXW and pressed "NEXT" and that was about it. When I next went into OmniPage, there were two scanners from which to choose in the "tools", "Options" "scanner" dialogue. When you use the arrow keys to select the ISIS scanner, some information about the driver automatically appears. You may need to press OK when you select it for the first time. before you do above locate driver and see if on system. location of ises in omni page 10 The Isis driver is scanjet.pxw. I don't know if it is included with Omni Page 10. It was on the Omni Page 9 CD. You would need to look in the c:\windows\pixtran subdirectory. to verify if it is their. if not their create the pixtran folder under windows and place driver into that folder. if you have a 6200 scanner you can actually purchase a driver specifically for your exact model. no idea if this adds much in the way of performance, but the company lets you try a trial copy of driver if you contact them. here is contact info, but be aware this will cost a pretty penny. Dear Pixel Translations Customer, here is a e mail address for contacting us. kwille@pixtran.com the driver will be compressed into a self-extracting ZIP file along with other files that you will need. Please create a temporary directory and place the attached file into it. Then run the file to extract it's contents. After doing this, please view the contents of the README.TXT file, which will contain further installation instructions. Pixel Translations" APPENDIX 3 SPEEDING UP OLDER HEWLETT PACKARD SCANNERS The below is an e-mail I received from a very helpful American Web surfer. As I do not own an Hewlett Packard scanner, I cannot test these instructions but the authors, bill Cammeron and his unnamed friend, seem to know what they are talking about. I have reproduced Bill's e-mail instructions verbatim (except for changing some American to English spellings and some spacing) for your consideration. If you require more guidance or explanation, please contact Scansoft technical support. Bill's Message "here are instructions for you to publish for others. author has no problem with sharing. before you read this document if you have text bridge millennium remember that ises is directly supported and best instructions for installing ises drivers for your hp scanner can be obtained from text bridge tec support. it will require using tec support because it will not automatically load ises driver like it did in earlier versions of text bridge. using the ises driver should cut scan times in half. read on what a hp 6200 scanner user says below about how he picked up speed despite his scanner not being listed in the list of supported scanners for the ises driver provided. plus steps for omni page 10 with the ises driver set up. I've done a little investigating and experimenting since Friday night regarding this subject and here is what I found. First, I found that I do have a PIXTRAN folder within the Windows folder with tons of drivers, including a SCANJET and a SCANJETX. However, only a few of these appear to have come from OmniPage 10. I have had previous versions of OmniPage on this machine, so some may have come from a previous version. of course all this means little to a new user. new users can though create their own folder and place the proper driver into it if necessary. because most h p scanners now being maid are not scl most ocr packages install twain instead. most newer hp models now use twain by default even if they are scl scanners like the 6200 models, all three of them, and the 6300 series. only scl scanners from hp can improve performance when using the ises drivers. hp scanners with no scl are better sticking to twain like the 4200 model. the generic ises driver that comes with ocr packages is best suited to models, 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p, 2c, 2cx, 3c, 4c, 6100 and 5200 models. remember you may also need to buy a adaptec p c i scsi card to get older hp scanners working in 98. 98 p n p will recognize the adaptec 2906 p c i card. plug in scanner and 98 p n p will load its driver as well. much easier installed than h p with out adaptec card. However, it appears that the SCANJET.PXW driver came from TextBridge Millennium. it is also in omni page 9 for certain. also in type reader 5 for certain. text bridge millennium also does not install ises for h p scanners by default, no it picks twain like omni page 10 does. The SCANJET.PXW is on the installation CD-ROM but it is contained within the DATA.CAB compressed cabinet file so it would need to be extracted. TextBridge Millennium as Ii installed it uses the TWAIN driver, even though it contained the above-mentioned ISIS driver. i would think these drivers are included in the downloadable demo of text bridge millennium. That might be a cheap way to get them for someone who doesn't have the driver already. I tried the ISIS driver, SCANJET.PXW, with OmniPage 10, even though my scanner was not mentioned. There were a number of HP scanners mentioned such as the 5200 and 6100 that made me think it was worth a try. At this point, the ISIS driver does seem to work and it is definitely faster. It seemed to work fine with the USB interface. also of note even text bridge 98 ises driver supported u s b. By the way, when you select a scanner from within OmniPage 10, a screen of information appears that lists the scanners that are supported. Also, to get a scanner driver installed, you must use Caere's SCAN manager in CONTROL Panel and you must "ADD Scanner. Also, even though I could select that option with the arrow keys, I had to route and click the mouse pointer to actually execute it. I also tried the SCANJETX.PXW driver and it did not work. It appears to support fewer scanners than the SCANJET.PXW driver, though, so this makes sense. It eventually caused a system crash. end of story of a 6200 hp scanner user." "omni page tech support told me it is in their in version 10, just hidden away like it was in version 9. can not seem to find it. though it is possible the omni page tech could have been confused and may have remembered it was hidden in version 9 and maybe 10 does not have the driver. if not a old version of omni page or a copy of text bridge can solve that problem. here are the instructions for doing exactly that. they do conclude you have driver in the proper folder as discussed above. Hi john, Here is what I did to add the ISIS driver for my HP 6200C to OmniPage 10. This assumes that the driver already exists on the hard disk. I believe my ISIS drivers came from a version of TextBridge. Go to Settings, then Control Panel. Arrow down to Caere Scan Manager and press ENTER. You should now see a list of the scanners that have been installed. There may only be one scanner. There is one additional item at the top of the list that says "Add Scanner." Going to the "view" menu and selecting "list" will make this box respond to the UP and DOWN ARROW keys. You can view the properties of an installed scanner, delete it or rename it as well from the FILE menu when that scanner is selected. However, to add a new scanner, I found I had to double-click the "add Scanner" item with the mouse and a wizard was started. When the wizard starts, I found a list of scanners. This is a tree view, so as I moved through the list of scanners, the right side changed. The first scanner on the list was "generic". With "Generic" selected, I tabbed one time to a list of choices for "generic," and I selected the ISIS option. I then tabbed to "next" and pressed ENTER. The next step asked me to name the scanner, and gave me options to make that scanner the default with "yes" or "no" radio check boxes. I chose "no" and pressed "NEXT." The next box lists all of the ISIS drivers. I chose SCANJET.PXW and pressed "NEXT" and that was about it. When I next went into OmniPage, there were two scanners from which to choose in the "tools", "Options" "scanner" dialogue. When you use the arrow keys to select the ISIS scanner, some information about the driver automatically appears. You may need to press OK when you select it for the first time. before you do above locate driver and see if on system. location of ises in omni page 10 The Isis driver is scanjet.pxw. I don't know if it is included with Omni Page 10. It was on the Omni Page 9 CD. You would need to look in the c:\windows\pixtran subdirectory. to verify if it is their. if not their create the pixtran folder under windows and place driver into that folder. if you have a 6200 scanner you can actually purchase a driver specifically for your exact model. no idea if this adds much in the way of performance, but the company lets you try a trial copy of driver if you contact them. here is contact info, but be aware this will cost a pretty penny. Dear Pixel Translations Customer, here is a e mail address for contacting us. kwille@pixtran.com the driver will be compressed into a self-extracting ZIP file along with other files that you will need. Please create a temporary directory and place the attached file into it. Then run the file to extract it's contents. After doing this, please view the contents of the README.TXT file, which will contain further installation instructions. Pixel Translations" ******** APPENDIX 5 OTHER TUTORIALS BY THIS AUTHOR All of the below titles are available as plain text files as downloads from my Website at: http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard Tutorial titles and brief descriptions 1. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 1, covering Web and e-mail protocols, Web Search engines, navigating the Internet with Internet Explorer 5.0/5.5/6.0, e-mailing with Outlook Express 5.0/5.5/6.0, Downloading files and programs from the Net, using a range of Internet search engines, Joining Internet newsgroups with Free Agent 1.92, configuration and hints and tips for screenreader users, and much more. 2. "Accessing the Internet from the Keyboard", Volume 2, covering hints and customisation, Download Managers, Online Auctions, Internet Chat Rooms, RealAudio, Internet Shopping and Internet Banking. 3. A selection of separate and individual manuals instructing visually impaired people how to use off-the-shelf print scanning/reading programs via screenreaders and the keyboard, including TextBridge Pro 98, TextBridge Pro 9 and Millennium, Omnipage Pro 10, 11 and 12, ReadIRIS Pro 6, TypeReader Pro 6 and Abby FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7. Each scanner tutorial is an independent manual in its own right. For example, the titles of the principal two of these scanner tutorials are entitled: "Using OmniPage Pro 10, 11 and 12 from the Keyboard to Scan Print" and "Using FineReader Pro 5, 6 and 7 from the Keyboard to Scan Print". 4. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 1. This covers Easy CD Creator 4, Sound forge 4.5, Windows Media Player 6, Windows Recorder, Winamp 2.72, Freerip.mp3, RealPlayer 8 Basic, and much more. 5. "Audio Playing, Copying and Sound Editing From the Keyboard", Edition 2. This covers Winamp 5.0X, GoldWave audio editor 5.06, CDEX ripper 1.51, Basics of burning with Nero 5.5 and much more introductory and general sound-related information. 6. "Nero Burning-ROM Versions 4,5 and 5.5 from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 3.3 and Nero Media Player). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero Wizard, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 7. "Nero Burning-ROM 6 Ultra and Enterprise Editions from the Keyboard" (includes Nero INCD 4). This covers burning of data and audio CDs and DVDs withe Nero Burning-ROM and the Nero StartSmart interfaces, Saving and reopening compilation templates, Using Nero online help, burning/cloning whole hard disks and partitions or folders to CD or DVD, converting MP3 files to other formats, ripping sound files to MP3 or MP3 Pro files, a good deal of specific configuration and general information on CD and DVD burning drives and CD and DVD disks, using Windows Volume Control, and much more. 8. "Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". This takes spreadsheet users from the beginner stages of Excel through much intermediate material and also covers a few more advanced features. It will give you the skills to use Excel for home accounting purposes, for keeping self-employed small business records and for use in the employment workplace. 9. "Microsoft Outlook 2000 and 2002/XP from the Keyboard". This is a tutorial instructing on how to use the richly-featured suite of programs which is a must for anyone seeking employment or wanting to do advanced e-mailing or calendar and other related tasks at home or at work. It covers all of the main features of MS Outlook and many other more technical topics. Covered is: E-mailing, Calendar, Journal, Tasks, Notes, Contacts, arranging appointments and meetings, searching, plus customising Outlook for visually impaired and blind users and appendices of Outlook general shortcuts and HAL, JAWS AND Window-Eyes hot keys and much more. 10. "Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 from the Keyboard". Available as a plain text file and instructs on how to use over 45 separate skills in these powerful leading word-processors for use at home or in the workplace to make you highly productive and efficient. ******** The End.