USING TEXTBRIDGE PRO 9 AND TEXTBRIDGE MELLENIUM FROM THE KEYBOARD TO READ PRINT BY JOHN WILSON Copyright 2006 ******** TABLE OF CONTENTS (To find a particular section or heading, use your word- processor's or editor's search facility, e.g. type ">section 6" to find that section. Putting a > sign (capitalised full stop) immediately before the word section will ensure that you do not stop on an earlier cross-reference to that section. Type the string "Stages of OCR" to find that subheading or just type "1.2." to find it via its paragraph number. Additionally, all main sections are separated by a centred row of eight asterisks.) Foreword Restrictions Available Manual Formats TextBridge Versions Conventions Suggested Approaches for Effective Learning with this Tutorial Section 1: Introduction. 1.1. What is OCR? 1.2. Stages of OCR. Section 2: Before Installing TextBridge. 2.1. System Requirements. 2.2. Important Interface Software Note. Section 3: Types of Scanners. 3.1. Main Scanner Standards. 3.2. Which Scanner to Buy and Where From? Section 4: Installing TextBridge Pro 4.1. Scanner Set Up. Section 5: TextBridge Pro Capabilities. 5.1. Input and Output Formats. 5.2. Page Types. 5.3. Scanners Supported. 5.4. Specialist User Dictionaries. 5.5. Automatic Document Feeders (ADF) 5.6. Document Colour Scanning Capabilities. 5.7. Type face and size. 5.8. Languages Supported. 5.9. Deferred Recognition 5.10. Scan to E-Mail Section 6: Customising TextBridge to Work Better for Visually Impaired People Section 7: Using TextBridge in Automatic Mode. 7.1. Pen-Picture of the TextBridge Screen. 7.2. Automatic Mode. 7.3. Standard Automatic Scanning Settings. 7.4. Example of How to Scan Automatically. 7.5. Saving Your Scanned Document 7.6. Adding more Pages After Saving. 7.7. Opening/Reopening a Saved Document for Reading. Section 8: Using Instant Access to Read Print. 8.1. The Instant Access Control Panel. 8.2. Example of How to Scan Documents with Instant Access. Section 9: Overview of Manual Mode Scanning. Section 10: Deferred Recognition 10.1. Example of Deferred Recognition Scanning Section 11: Scan to E-Mail 11.1. Example of Scanning to Mail Section 12: Changing Scanner Settings. Section 13: TextBridge Help. 13.1. Types of Help. 13.1.1. Help Topics 13.1.2. Menu Help 13.1.3. Dialogue Help 13.1.4. Index Help 13.1.5. Website Help. Appendix 1: TextBridge Technical Support. Appendix 2: List of Shortcut Keystrokes. Appendix 3: Speeding Up Older Hewlett Packard Scanners. Appendix 4: 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 TextBridge 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. ******** TextBridge Versions This tutorial has been written for TextBridge Pro 9 and TextBridge Millenium, which are the fully-featured, purchasable versions of the software. You can buy it from any high street computer retailer but purchasing it directly from the manufacturer may save you a few pounds (See Appendix 1 for details of how to contact Scansoft who sell TextBridge and OmniPage). Before you buy, phone Scansoft about their price and some of your local software vendors, such as PC World, Dixon's, Software Warehouse, and possibly some mail order suppliers, as they may have special offers available or may have TextBridge Pro 9 bundled with other software as part of an economy pack. TextBridge Millennium is the same as TextBridge Pro 9, except that it is compatible with Microsoft Office 2000 whereas TextBridge Pro 9 is only compatible with Microsoft Office suites up to Office 97. When I phoned Scansoft on 14 August 2000, they advised me that to buy TextBridge Millennium directly from them the price would be œ79.00 plus œ3.75 for postage (VAT included). If you have a registered older version of TextBridge, the upgrade price is œ49.99 plus œ3.75 postage (VAT included). TextBridge sales office is on 0870 8708085. However, PC World advised me last week (beginningof August 2000) that they had TextBridge Millenium available at present for œ49.99 as the full package, not an upgrade! You can also download both TextBridge Millenium and OmniPage Pro 10 from the Scansoft Website and pay for them by credit card, if you wish. The price is the same as above but with no postage charge, of course. Scansoft's policy is that if you are not happy with their products, you can ask for a refund within 30 days. I have also written other manuals in respect of other leading scanning software programs, for instance, for OmniPage Pro 10, Expervision's Typereader Pro 6.0, etc. For more information, please contact John Wilson at: ******** 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 R (for Process), G (for Get page) is suggested to go into the "Process" menu and run the "Get Page" 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 "Get Page" line is spoken, then press ENTER. ******** Suggested Approaches for Effective Learning with this Tutorial It is, of course, entirely up to the individual as to how they glean information and work through this tutorial, but a few suggestions might assist the learner who is relatively new to computers. I would propose that you read through the whole of a section before attempting to practise it to obtain an overview of what is being done. There are a number of approaches which might be taken to make reading the tutorial as a text file and simultaneously carrying out the instructions more fluid and easier to follow. Try one of the below methods. Ideally, if you have two computers, you can load the tutorial into your text editor or word-processor on one PC and have the software program running on the other. You can then listen to the directions on one computer whilst practising them on the other. Alternatively, as is likely to be the case, if you only have the one computer, you could launch your word-processor and load the tutorial into it for reading. You could then launch the program you wish to learn how to use in order to practise the lessons. You would have to keep cycling between each running program by pressing ALT TAB in this case. Yet another approach might be to take a tape recorder or dictaphone and get your screenreader to read the contents of a given section or sub-section onto the tape. You could then play the tape back and follow the instructions through on your PC without having to keep moving from one running program to another. Other options would be for you to print out a copy of the tutorial in large print if you can use this and work from this hard copy, or you could get your local library or resource centre to produce a Braille version for you to work from if you have one in your area and you are a Braillist. ******** >SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. 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 then can be converted to text so they can be read with a screenreader and synthesiser and edited within TextBridge 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 machines/FAX modems. TextBridge 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 would. 1.2. Stages of OCR The main stages TextBridge 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 "Get Page" 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, known as "zones". This is the "Zoning" 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 can be retained. 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, RTF, Excel, etc. You can save pictures as well or have these omitted. ******** >SECTION 2 BEFORE INSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE 2.1. System Requirements The minimum computer specifications you will need for TextBridge Pro 9 to run are: 1. A 486 or Pentium Processor. 2. A minimum of 24 Megabytes of RAM (memory). 3. MS Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT 4. 4. At least 20 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). 2.2. Important 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 TextBridge, 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 3.1. 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). Additionally, you are likely to have to be running Windows 98 or later to use this type of scanner. 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. 3.2. 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. Remember, scanner models and standards change rapidly and so the below information will soon become outdated. Epson UK Ltd--The Epson 1200 Costs 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. Around July 2001 Epson brought out two Epsone Perfection USB scanners, the Perfection 6400U and Perfection 1240U. They start at about œ65 and are said to be very fast and acurate wen scanning print. Even more recently, the Epson 1650 scanner is said to be a good scanner. For more information phone: 0800 220546. 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. Hewlett Packard have also recently brought out a scanner called the HP4300C at around œ100 which has quick scan buttons on the flatbed case itself, so with this one, after you have set up the buttons to use your preferred e-mail client, OCR software, FAX client, etc, you can just press one of these to commence a scan. 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. Agfa have also recently brought out a scanner called the "Snapscan Touch" at around œ100 which has quick scan buttons on the flatbed case itself, so with this one, after you have set up the buttons to use your preferred e-mail client, OCR software, colour picture scanning software, etc, you can just press one of these to commence a scan. 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 3 gives details on how to make an older Hewlett Packard scanner work faster by using an ISIS instead of a TWAIN driver. ******** >SECTION 4 INSTALLING TEXTBRIDGE To install TextBridge, having already installed the scanner interface software and checked that it works, 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. You will land on the "Install TextBridge" button, so press ENTER. 3. After a few seconds you will be presented with the "Welcome" screen and you will be on the "Next" button, so press ENTER. 4. The software licence agreement comes up and if you agree with its terms, TAB to "Yes" and press ENTER. 5. Next you get the user information screen. You will fall on the "Firstname" line, so type this in and then TAB to the subsequent editfields and complete the boxes. You will come to the Serial No line. You can find the Serial Number on the sleeve which the CD disk came in. It will look something like: S0449TPW9E16095. Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 6. The next screen tells you where the program will install to, which will be: C:\Program Files\TextBridge Pro 9.0 (or something similar in the case of TextBridge Millennium) so accept this by TABBING to "Next" and then press ENTER. 7. The set up type screen comes up and you will be on "Typical", so TAB to "Next" and press ENTER to accept this. Use "Compact" if you have limited available disk space. Use "Custom" if you want to run textBridge with languages other than English. You then get another "Next" button, so press ENTER on this as well. 8. The copying of files will commence and will take one or two minutes, after which you will be on the "Next" button, so press ENTER. 9. Another details list will appear but this time for online modem registration of the software. Whether or not you have an Internet connection, I recommend that you skip this stage to keep things simple. You can always register online later or via E-mail or FAX. You ignore this form by pressing the ESC key followed by pressing ENTER on "Yes". An "OK" button then appears, so press ENTER again. 10. You will be on another "Yes" button asking you to restart the computer for all files to be properly configured, so accept this by pressing ENTER, after removing the CD disk. 11. If you are asked to set up your scanner at this stage, do so, by following the below steps. Otherwise, if not asked, you will be presented with these scanner set up questions when you first try to scan or by going into ALT T (for Tools) and pressing ENTER on "Scanner Set up". 4.1. Scanner Set Up 11. Scanner set up can be viewed as a continuation of the above initial files installation. After performing step 10 above, you will have to configure your current scanner source, so TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. Another screen appears which you can just TAB to another "Next" button on and press ENTER. You should be told that your scanner is successfully connected to the PC. Press TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 12. You will be asked to insert a document on the flatbed to configure the scanner with its own driver. Therefore, put a sheet of black print on a white background onto the scanner and press ENTER on "Next". You may have to select a "Scan" or similar button at this stage, depending upon your scanner interface software. The scanner should run and you should obtain the message that the basic scan test was passed. 13. You will now be presented with the type of scanner screen and "Flatbed" should be selected, so TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. However, if you are to use a document feeder, check (by pressing the SPACEBAR on it) the "ADF" option. Go to "Next" and press ENTER. 14. You will be in the paper size screen but there is nothing to do other then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. 15. You now have to place a binary (black print on white background) page on the scanner and press ENTER on "Next" to get this page scanned. Then press ENTER on "Next". 16. You will get the same options now as in 15 above but this time put a sheet with a coloured picture or coloured print onto the scanner. TAB to "Next" and press ENTER. The scanner will run again. Then press ENTER on "Next". 17. This time you have to put a grey scaled photograph or grey shades of print onto the flatbed. Then press ENTER on "Next" to scan this sheet and then ENTER again on "Next" to move on. 18. You will be told that scanning configuration is complete, so press TAB to "Finish" and press ENTER. Note: If, when you try to scan a page, you get a cannot scan message, it may be that your scanner interface software is not sufficiently up to date for TextBridge to work with. In these circumstances, you will have to contact the scanner manufacturer to obtain the correct scanner interface software or download it from their Website. You should then uninstall the old interface software before installing the new one and then run "Scanner Set Up" from the "Tools" menu, choosing "Select Scanning Source" from the first screen of options which appears. ******** >SECTION 5 TEXTBRIDGE Pro CAPABILITIES 5.1. Input and Output Formats TextBridge can import (accept from other sources) several formats such as pdf files, tiff files, xis files, pdx files, etc. You can then process and output these in many different formats. TextBridge can also output or save the product of its scanning to many file formats, such as AmI Pro, Word, HTML, WordPerfect, PDF, DBase, Txt, Write, Excel, rtf, MS Works, Some Mackintosh formats, and many more. 5.2. Page Types TextBridge can deal with several page formats which you place on your scanner flatbed, including: Any Page--When TextBridge attempts to recognise the layout of any type of page or a variety of differently formatted pages within one document. Any Page Colour--Same as above but for pages with coloured text or backgrounds. Any Page FAX Quality--Same as above but for poorer quality documents. Legal Document--Large single column pages which cover the whole scanner bed. Magazine--Pages in flowing columns with good quality print. Magazine Colour--Same as the above but with coloured print or black print on a coloured background. Letter--A page with a single column only (sometimes known as simple galley form). Newspaper Article--Generally poorer quality print in columns. Table--Documents in cells or with tabbed column blocks. Business Card--Small document possibly with colours and ornate background. Book (Duel Page)--This selection will cause TextBridge to scan the left side of a book first and then the right side, placing the right side underneath the left. FAX--The program will attempt to recognise a FAX sheet layout with its generally poorer quality structure and print. TextBridge will produce better results if you can tell it what the page size is, e.g. legal, letter, A4, etc; what the print quality or type is, e.g. FAX quality, good quality, poor quality, etc; and what the layout of the page is, e.g. single column, multiple column, spreadsheet, etc. However, as a visually impaired person you may not be able to do this but TextBridge should still do a reasonable job and you can always rescan a page with different settings if the first attempt is not satisfactory. 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. 5.3. Scanners Supported TextBridge supports dozens of scanner makes and standards, for instance, ISIS, TWAIN, Epson, Hewlett Packard, Canon, Agfa, Panasonic, Microtek, and many more. However, TextBridge does not fully support Hewlett Packard's HP5100C parallel port scanner, Visioneer sheet fed scanners or triple pass scanners. Note: Whilst TextBridge Pro supports many Hewlett Packard scanners and will work well with them, it does not support the Hewlett Packard HP Acupage scanner drivers. To obtain an up-to-date list of scanners supported by TextBridge surf to: www.textbridge.com Also see the release notes in the TextBridge folder, in C:\Program Files\TextBridge Pro 9.0\Release Notes. 5.4. 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 F1, CONTROL TABBING to "Index" and typing in something like "user dictionary". If you have uninstalled an earlier version of TextBridge prior to installing this one, any user dictionaries you had created in the earlier program will not be deleted. You can then copy them to TextBridge Pro 9 via the path: C:\Program Files\TextBridge Pro 9.0\bin\User Dictionaries\ 5.5. 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 Textbridge 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 TextBridge help system. 5.6. Document colour Scanning capabilities TextBridge 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. Depending on the design and age of your scanner, you may or may not be able to colour scan. Your scanned and recognised page, even if it started as a colour page, will normally be output as black print on a white background. 5.7. Type Face and Size TextBridge purports to be able to recognise almost any kind of type face. It claims to be able to scan type sizes from five to 72 point (72 point is one inch or 2.5 centimetres in hight). Textbridge recommends that if the type size is under eight point, you may obtain better results if you change the scanner resolution from 3000 dots per inch to 400 DPI. 5.8. Languages Supported The "Typical" TextBridge installation enables you to set up the program in English, French, German, Italian and spanish. There are other language options but you can only install these by using the "Custom" installation option. This version of TextBridge can also recognise several languages on the same page. 5.9. Deferred Recognition This is the process of quickly image scanning a multipage document and then leaving the time-consuming recognition, orientating and formatting until later, when your away from your desk or while your doing something else not computer-related (see Section 10 for how to do this). 5.10. Scan to E-Mail You can output the product of your scans directly to common e- mail programs, such as Outlook Express (see Section 11 for more details on how to do this). ******** >SECTION 6 CUSTOMISING TEXTBRIDGE TO WORK BETTER FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED PEOPLE (As customisation is not essential for TextBridge to function for visually impaired people, but is rather desirable for maximising accessibility and simplicity, you may wish to jump straight to Section 7 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 TextBridge'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: 1. Press ALT V to go into the View menu and then ARROW up to "Toolbars" and press ENTER. TAB to and uncheck with the SPACEBAR "Tip Toolbar" and "Show Tool Tips". Leave "Status Bar" checked, as this provides progress information, e.g. tells you when the program is "ready" for use, when it is "recognising", when it is "formatting", etc. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 2. Press ALT R for process and ARROW up to "Auto Save Settings" and press ENTER. You will be in a duel tab list of property sheets: A. In the "Auto Save" property sheet you will be on the path to the folder where TextBridge will normally save any of your scanned documents. If you want to change this, for example, to "My Documents" (if you have Word), you can TAB to the "Browse" button and then navigate to the C: drive and then to "My Documents" to make this the future save default, or anywhere else you personally prefer. Then press TAB to the "Save AS Type" listbox and select the format you would like your scanned print to be saved in, e.g. doc for Word files, txt for plain ASCII text files to view in Notepad, etc. Press TAB again to "Retain Pictures" and uncheck this by pressing the SPACEBAR if these are of no use to you. Then TAB once more to "Retain Layout" and uncheck this so that columns can be more easily decolumnised by TextBridge--experiment with this on and off to find which setting you prefer. TAB again to "Open File When Done" and ensure that this is checked so that after you have scanned a document, it will automatically be opened in its normal program ready for you to immediately read, edit and/or save, e.g. a txt file would automatically be opened in Notepad for you. B. Then press CONTROL TAB to the "Send To" property sheet and change the folder where scans which you want to save as web pages in HTML format will be saved if you wish in the same way as you may have done in A above. Leave the other settings as they are (unless you have other personal choices you want to make here) and just TAB to "OK" and press ENTER. 3. Press ALT R (for Process) and ARROW up to "Page Type" and press ENTER. Then (with the page type highlighted which you want to look at or make changes in) TAB to "Settings" and press ENTER again. You will have opened up a multi TABBED page of property sheets. Make changes in these as follows: Note: Each of the below configuration changes is specific to the "page type" you have highlighted at the time you make such changes, e.g. in the "Any Page (B&W)" page type, the "Magazine (colour)" page type, etc. Therefore, you will have to consider such changes for all eleven page types, depending on that page type's scanning objectives. A. In the "Original Page" sheet ensure that "Any" orientation is selected by ARROWING to it to ensure that TextBridge will scan a sheet whichever way you put it onto the scanner flatbed. You can make other changes here if you wish, e.g. the "Book (Duel Page") control lets you elect to scan two sides of a book simultaneously (sideways on if you like) and then it places the left-hand page above the right-hand page in a single column for easy and logical reading. This cuts down the number of times you have to scan book pages by half. B. Then press CONTROL TAB to the "Scanner" sheet. Press TAB to the "Scan Page Size" group and ARROW down to "A4 . . ." to ensure that the scanner always covers as much of the flatbed when it scans as possible. You can, of course, choose to have the scanner only move across part of the flatbed if all you ever scan is small pages. Ensure that the "Brightnes Adjust Automatically" button is checked, if your scanner can support this. C. Then move to the last property sheet with CONTROL TAB, which is the "Processing" TAB. If you want to have pages processed in other languages, you can select them here. D. Whilst you are in these property sheets have a good look around, as there may be options which you would wish to change to suit your own particular likes for any given page type. E. After making any changes, TAB to the "OK" button in any of the property sheets and press ENTER. Then TAB to the next "OK" button and press ENTER again. The new settings which you have created will now apply to all future scans until you change them. Note: These property sheets also contain a "Reset" button so that you can quickly return the settings to their original configuration. 4. Press ALT T, O (for options), when another multipage property sheet will open. Here you will probably benefit from changes such as: A. In the "General" sheet uncheck "Show Welcome Window When Starting". B. CONTROL TAB to the "Text Page" sheet and uncheck "Pictures" if you are unable to see these and do not want them to be retained for other people. C. Now press CONTROL TAB to the last, the "Colour", property sheet and have a look around this. You will probably not want to change anything here, unless you prefer different areas of the screen, suspect words, etc, to be in different colours to the defaults. Each of the three different types of zones--text, tables and pictures--is displayed in a different colour. This will only matter to you if you can see sufficiently to look at the proofreading image which TextBridge shows after a scan in order to make changes. If not, save your proofreading/spell- checking for your favourite word-processor later. D. After making these changes, TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to save all of them. 5. To place a shortcut icon on your Desktop for quick and easy launching of TextBridge: 1. With Windows 98 and some versions of Windows 95: A. place focus on the TextBridge program by pressing Windows Logo key, then T (for TextBridge Pro 9, Classic or Millennium), followed by B (for Bin) and lastly T (for TextBridge.exe). B. Now press SHIFT F10 to bring up a Context Menu and ARROW to "Send To" and press ENTER. C. Lastly, ARROW down to "Desktop" and press ENTER. 2. If the above is not possible with your operating system, the longer way to achieve this is: A. Press Windows LOGO key followed by the letter S, then press T. B. Then press CONTROL TAB to the 'Start Menu Programs Property Sheet'. C. You will and on the 'Add' button, so press ENTER. Then tab to the 'Browse' button and press ENTER. D. You will be asked for the executable filename, so type in "textbridge.exe" and then TAB to the list of folders on your c: drive underneath the 'Look In' line. Press P until 'Program Files' is spoken and then press ENTER. E. Then press T until "TextBridge Pro 9" (or TextBridge Classic" or "TextBridge Millennium" if you are using one of these versions) is spoken and press ENTER. F. Press B until "bin" is highlighted and then press ENTER. G. Now press T until "TextBridge,exe" is spoken. If you are making a shortcut to use Instant Access mode, instead of stand alone mode, the file you are looking for in the above stage is called "InstantAccess.exe". H. Press the TAB key to the 'Open' option and then press ENTER. I. 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. J. You are asked to select a name for the shortcut and given "TextBridge.exe" as an option. If you want to change this, just type over it, e.g. with "TextBridge 9", and then press TAB to the 'Finish' button and press ENTER. K. Now press TAB to the 'OK' button and press ENTER to complete the procedure. L. You can now, in the normal way, go to this shortcut on your Desktop by pressing ALT M followed by T until "TextBridge 9" (or Millennium) is spoken and then press ENTER to launch it. ******** >SECTION 7 USING TEXTBRIDGE IN AUTOMATIC MODE 7.1. Pen-Picture of the TextBridge Screen The basic layout of the TextBridge screen shows the Title Bar at the very top of the screen, under this is the Main menu bar and just below this is the Process Toolbar. Under these, taking up most of the rest of the screen are the thumbnail view area and the field where the scanned page will be displayed. At the very bottom of the screen is the Status Line showing what stage a scan is at, e.g. "Ready", "Recognising", "Formatting", etc. 7.2. Automatic Mode Before starting your computer you should switch the scanner on otherwise it may not be recognised. You run TextBridge in this stand-alone, automatic way independently of any other running application (see Section 8 "Using the Instant Access Control Panel" for how to run it from within another application). You would save the scanned page in any of a number of formats, e.g. Word 97, WordPerfect 9, etc. You could then open the saved file in Word 97 or WordPerfect for editing if you wish. This is much easier and more controllable than trying to edit in TextBridge itself. In automatic mode you only have to choose the page type you are scanning and TextBridge does the rest for you. You just add more pages when prompted to do so. This form of scanning is now much quicker and less labour-intensive than it was with TextBridge Pro 98. Because of this the need for the TextBridge Scanning wizard which was part of TextBridge Pro 98 has been removed. 7.3. Standard Automatic Scanning Settings The default (standard) settings which TextBridge uses in automatic "Any Page B/W" scanning (unless you have changed any of these) are: Any Page Layout--It will try to recognise whatever page type is scanned, whether single column, magazine, FAX, etc, with black print on a white background. Any Print Type--TextBridge will be prepared to recognise good and poor quality print. It scans in grey scaling shades for maximum recognition capability. Letter Size Paper--This is paper which is 8.5 X 11 inches in size. Scanner resolution--300 dots per inch. scanner brightness--Normal (50 percent). Language--English. Training data--None. Zone template--None. Orientation--Portrait (page longways, top to bottom like a letter). Page layout--Retained. Pictures--Retained. Formatting--With paragraph styles. One file--For all pages. Save in--The Text Documents folder of the TextBridge folder. Save as--Standard format. User Dictionary--Default dictionary. Note: If you have changed the default of any of these, e.g. no pictures, automatic orientation, etc, then these changes will be honoured. 7.4. Example of How to Scan Automatically With your scanner having been sswitched on prior to booting your computer, you would: 1. Run TextBridge from the icon on your Desktop if you have put one there or run it via the Run option on your Start Menu or by navigating to and pressing ENTER on the exe file, e.g. press Windows logo key, followed by P (for Program Files), then T until you hear "TextBridge" spoken, when you should press ENTER again and then ARROW up to "TextBridge Pro 9" (or something similar if you have the free Classic or newest Millennium version) and press ENTER to load it. 2. Press ALT R (for process) and then A (for Auto Process). You will land on the "Any Page B/W" (B/W means black and white) page type option, which you may want to use if you have no idea what kind of page layout your page has. If you know what your page layout is, you can ARROW right and down to select a different page layout, e.g. "Magazine Page", "letter", etc. If you know the page is colour, ARROW right to "Any Page Colour" or press M to "Magazine Page Colour", or if your first scan is poor and you do not know whether or not the page is coloured or black and white, try the scan again with one of the colour options. The reason for the first scan being bad may be because the page is in coloured print. Note: With some scanner interface software, the scanning process may start immediately after you press ALT R, A (see "Important Interface Software Note" in Section 2). 3. You will hear the scanner start to run immediately and your speech will announce the various stages of the scanning process, such as zoning, orienting, etc, but your speech may stammer during this stage because the scanning process takes up almost all of your computers memory and processing capacity, leaving little for speech to work reliably. 4. After a few seconds the page will have been scanned and you will be presented with a dialogue box asking you if you have finished scanning (the "Done" button(or if you want to scan more pages (the "More Pages" button). 5. If you have finished, just press ENTER as you are already on the "Done" button. If you want to scan another page, either TAB to the "More Pages" button and press ENTER or simply press the M key to achieve this. The scanner will again run immediately and scan the next page. 6. The sequence will continue in this way until you have scanned all of the pages you want, so then press ENTER on "Done" and the scanning process is finished. TextBridge will now Recognise and format the page(s) and then bring up the "Save As" dialogue automatically. 7.5. Saving Your Scanned document 7. In the "Save As" dialogue you will be in the place where TextBridge has given the scanned file a name of its own but you can just type over this with your own filename in the "filename" editfield if you wish, e.g. with something like "memo1. 8. Press TAB to the "Save As Type" and ARROW up and down the many formats that you can save your scanned document in or press the initial letter of the format you want to jump straight there, e.g. press W to go to WordPerfect, A to go to various forms of ASCII plain text formats, etc. TextBridge will remember this format and save to the same format next time you save a scan, unless you change this. 9. You can then press TAB once more to the "Save" button and press ENTER. However, you may wish first to TAB to the "Retain Pictures" and "Retain Page Layout" controls and uncheck these first and ensure that "Open File When Done" is checked, if you have no use for pictures, want things decolumnising and would like the scan job to come straight up in your chosen word- processor or text editor for reading, editing, spell-checking or resaving. The place your scanned file will save is in "Text Documents", which is a subdirectory (subfolder) of your TextBridge folder. You can change this if you wish. The path is: c:\Program Files\TextBridge Pro 9.0\Text Documents\ However, if you want to save the file in your MS Office "My Documents" folder to make it easy to find and load into MS Word when you give the file a filename, you could do this by typing: c:\my documents\memo1 before TABBING to the "Save" button. In future all files you save will save to the "My Documents" folder until you change this. You will probably also wish to make the "Save As Type" a Word file with the extension .doc in this case. To save to your A: floppy disk drive, in the "File Name" editfield, type: A:\memo1 and press ENTER. Alternatively, if you want the file to save elsewhere using the browsing/navigating Windows method of saving, e.g. My Documents, TAB to the "Save In" control and use your up and down ARROW keys to select another destination, which can be somewhere else on the C: drive, or on the A: drive, etc. To open up the folders on the C: drive, ARROW to C, press ENTER and then ARROW to the folder you want, press ENTER and keep on ARROWING and pressing ENTER until you get to the place you want to save the file. Then press ALT S to save or TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. 10. The process is now finished and you can close the word- processing application which will have automatically opened to read the scanned document as soon as you saved it. you will return to TextBridge which will still be running. You can either close it with ALT F, X or by pressing ALT F4 or you can clear the screen by pressing CONTROL N and start another scan job. 7.6. Adding more Pages After Saving If you realise that you have missed out a page you should have scanned, as long as you have not cleared the screen with CONTROL N, you can still add it to the end of the above saved file by Pressing ALT R (for process), G (for get pages), when the new page will be added to the end of the document. Note 1: In the above save dialogue box (step 7), if you save in ASCII text, you cannot choose to retain pictures or retain page layout. However, if you choose a format such as Word or WordPerfect you can do this. Note 2: You can save the same document more than once, for instance, you can save it under one filename as a text only file and then under another filename retaining pictures and layout, or you can save the file firstly as an ASCII plain text file and then again as a WordPerfect 9 document. 7.7. Opening/Reopening a Saved Document for Reading If you have closed down TextBridge and later want to open a document again, after saving a scanned document, you can either open it in a text editor, such as Notepad if saved as a txt file, or in a word-processor, such as Word or Wordpad if saved as a rtf or doc file. Do this in the normal way by navigating to the file in the "Text Documents" folder. Alternatively, you can get to the "Text Documents" folder by pressing Windows LOGO key, P for Programs, T for TextBridge and then ARROWING to "Text Documents" and pressing ENTER. A list of your saved files will open up to ARROW down and press ENTER on any of these to have its associated program run and the file made available to you to read. Press ALT F4 to leave this list. Obviously, if you have chosen to save your documents elsewhere, then you will have to navigate there to read them. ******** >SECTION 8 USING INSTANT ACCESS TO READ PRINT Instant Access is a means of running TextBridge from within another program. For example, If you have Word 97 or WordPerfect 9 running you could start Textbridge from within that program and scan a page. The scanned page would be pasted into your word- processor at the point where the cursor currently is for reading or editing as required. You should not already have TextBridge running when you start Instant Access scanning. 8.1. The Instant Access Control Panel This is where the programs which instant access can run from are listed. With the stand-alone version of TextBridge running, you can open the Instant Access Control Panel from the Tools menu by pressing ALT T and ARROWING down to "Instant Access Control Panel" and press ENTER. A dialogue box will appear in which you can select which programs you want Instant Access to work from. You will be in this list when the control panel opens and can ARROW down the list. You should check (press the spacebar on) each program you have and might want to scan from within but most will already be checked. Then go to OK and press ENTER. You can also press ENTER on "All" to have all listed applications checked. If your application does not appear in the above list, you should close the Instant Access Control Panel, start your application and then open the Instant Access Control Panel again. Your application should now appear in the list. TextBridge will then appear in the File menu of each of the programs which are checked. 8.2. Example of How to Scan documents with Instant Access With your scanner turned on prior to switching on your computer, you would: 1. Start your word-processor or text editor with a blank document screen, e.g. Notepad, Amipro, Wordpad, MS Word, etc. For this example use Wordpad. You can load Wordpad by pressing Windows LOGO key, P for Program Files, A for Accessories and then W for Wordpad. 2. Press ALT F (for File) and ARROW up to "TextBridge..." and press ENTER. The TextBridge start dialogue box will appear which includes processing and output options. This box is much easier to use than its equivalent in TextBridge Pro 98. 3. The "Any Page" option will be selected but you can choose any of the other page formats if you wish. To make permanent changes press ENTER on the "settings" button and TAB around the options and CONTROL TAB to the other property sheets. The default with any page B/W scanning is for any page layout, any quality of print (grey scale scanning) and any page layout. Press ESC to close the settings dialogue box if you went into this and return to the start dialogue box. If you are scanning a letter you may want to TAB to "Letter" or press L until it is spoken before TABBING on, which will make scanning a little quicker as the program now knows exactly what it is being asked to scan and does not have to work this out for itself, plus the fact that letter scanning is done with the black and white scanning option of the scanning engine, which recognises faster than grey scale scanning as it is not being asked to "look" at the page as closely as is the case with grey scanning. 4. Keep pressing the TAB key. You should hear that "Scanner" is selected as the image source, pictures are to be retained, page layout is selected (Press SPACEBAR to uncheck the latter two if you have no use for them) and then you have an "Auto OCR" and a "Manual" button. 5. TAB to the "auto OCR" button and press ENTER to start the scan of your print document. 6. The usual "Done" and "More Pages" buttons will then appear, so make your choices by TABBING through them (or press D for "Done" or M for "More Pages") and then, when you have finished, select "Done" to have the pages formatted and immediately pasted into your word-processor or text editor at the cursor point. 7. You can now read, edit, spell-check and save the scanned document if you wish in the normal way within your application. Note: You may find that either the beginnings or ends of the lines of some documents have been cut off in some word-processing applications. However, the text will actually be there--it is just that it may run off the line. To hear the missing text, you may want to save the document and reopen it in a different application or press END to go to the end of the line and then observe the last word or two by pressing CONTROL right ARROW key. ******** >SECTION 9 OVERVIEW OF MANUAL MODE SCANNING In manual mode you take TextBridge through the various stages of OCR yourself so that you have access to methods of fine-tuning the results. However, for most visually impaired people this may not offer much additional flexibility, as such features as training and zoning require sight to perfect. You have to be able to see which word on a page TextBridge has made a hash of to be able to instruct it as to what the word should have been and you have to be able to draw lines around areas of text on the screen to be able to advise TextBridge where you want zones to apply. For this reason, I have not gone into this method of scanning in this manual. The above two alternative methods of scanning are both easier, faster and more convenient than manual scanning. It is no coincidence that specialist scanning programs for the visually impaired do not offer training or zoning as part of their repertoire of features. Just for interest's sake you would start a manual scan by going to "Get Page" in the "Process" menu and then select the separate steps of OCR from that menu in turn. This is labour intensive and not necessary for straightforward and medium complexity documents of reasonable quality. If you want to examine the options available in Manual mode scanning, see the relevant sections of the online manual by pressing F1 and CONTROL TABBING to the "Index" and then type in "manual" and then press the TAB key once and ARROW up and down the various manual ways to do things. Then TAB to "Display" and press ENTER to open up one of the explanations in respect of this form of scanning. ******** >SECTION 10 DEFERRED RECOGNITION 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 choose to have them recognised later in one block--when you are at lunch, have gone home at night, etc. You can even specifically "Schedule" the recognition for a future time, although the Scheduler is not very keyboard-friendly. This can be, at least in theory, a useful time-saver, particularly if you have a slow computer, but faster PCs can probably recognise the scanned pages rapidly enough so that you do not have to consider deferred recognition. Furthermore, it is debatable whether or not time will be saved using deferred recognition from the keyboard, as the procedures and lack of consistency of how the program behaves make the process labour-intensive but if you want to try it the way to do this is described below. 10.1. Example of Deferred Recognition Scanning With your scanner switched on first, then your computer, you would: 1. Press ALT T (for Tools) and ARROW up to "Scan Only (Defer oCR) and press ENTER. 2.A. Press ALT R (for process) and then press A (for auto). The scanner will run and the page image only will be obtained, not zoned, recognised or formatted. 2.B. Sometimes, and I cannot establish why, if the scanner does not run using the procedure in 2.A. above, you have first to get things going via the "Get Page" menu option first, by pressing ALT R, G, and then press ENTER on "From Scanner". After the first page is scanned, you can then press ALT R, A, to have the rest scanned automatically as above. 3. Almost immediately you will be able to press M for "More Pages" to scan the next page image. Carry on in this way until all pages are image scanned. 4. When finished press ENTER on "Done" and the "Save As" dialogue will appear. 5. Type a filename of your choice in, e.g. report1, and TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. TextBridge will announce "saving page to file". 6.A. To open the file for recognition whilst you are away from your desk, press ALT T (for tools) and go up again to "Scan Only (Defer OCR)" and press ENTER to uncheck this. 6.B. If in the above step you find that the "Scan Only (Defer OCR)" option is still checked but grayed out/disabled, you will not be able to progress from here. All you can do is close the program down and then start it up again, when you should now be able to uncheck the "Scan Only . . ." option and move on. Again, why this should be so inconsistent, I cannot fathom. 7. Then press CONTROL O and type the filename of the image file you saved above in to the editfield--report1 in this case. TAB to "Process Files as Separate Documents" and ensure that this is checked. 8. Then TAB to the "Open" button and press ENTER. TextBridge will announce "Reading page from file". 9. The image file will be read back into the image area on the screen but must now be recognised as a text file. 10. To get it recognised as a text file, you have to go into navigation or mouse mode to find the "Text" button on the screen and press ENTER (or left mouse button) on it. TextBridge will then do the recognising whilst you go to lunch, go home, etc. 11. You can then press ALT F, A, to resave this file as a text file and have it launched in its associated word-processor or editor for reading or editing, as with a standard text scan. ******** >SECTION 11 SCAN TO E-MAIL You can output the product of your scans directly to common e- mail programs, such as Outlook Express, CC Mail, etc. Your e-mail program will open up and you can complete the normal fields, e.g. "To:", "CC:", "Subject", etc, and the scan job will automatically be appended to the e-mail message as a standard attachment. 11.1. Example of Scanning to mail With your scanner switched on before booting your computer, scan to mail by: 1. Scan a document as normal. 2. Press ALT F (for file) and ARROW up to "Send to" and press ENTER. 3. You will land in a list of places/programs you can send the scanned document to, e.g. Word, WordPerfect, your e-mail program, the clipboard, etc. 4. ARROW down to and press ENTER on "Mail" and you will then have to use your screenreader's navigation or mouse mode to go to the "Send To" button on the Toolbar and press ENTER. 5. your e-mail program will load, e.g. Outlook Express, and you will be in the "To:" editfield to enter the e-mail address you want to send the scanned document to. Then TAB to "Subject:" and complete this as normal, then TAB to the message field and type your covering note to whoever you are sending the scanned document to. 6. The scanned document will have been attached to the e-mail message as a standard attachment with the same filename which you gave it when you scanned it. 7. Give the usual command to your mail program as you would to send a standard e-mail message and the cover message and attached scanned document will be sent via your modem after you have been taken on line. Warning: If your e-mailed scan contains any form of graphics or pictures, it may become a sizeable file to transfer and could take much longer to e-mail than would a straightforward text file. ******** >SECTION 12 CHANGING SCANNER SETTINGS To change any of the default (standard) scanner settings which TextBridge comes with to suit your own preferences or the particular characteristics of a given document you want to scan, there are a number of customisable property sheets which you can set things up in. Do this by pressing ALT R (for Process), then ARROW up to "Page Type" and press ENTER. In the list you fall in, you can help TextBridge to do a good scanning job by telling it what kind of page you usually put onto the scanner, if you mainly scan one type of page. If not, choose "Any Page". ARROW through the options, e.g. "Legal Document", "Magazine Page", etc. Then press TAB to the "Settings" button and press ENTER. You will be in a trio of property sheets as follows (move from one to the other by pressing CONTROL TAB): 1. In the "Orientation" sheet, in "Orientation", "Print Type" and "Page Layout" select "Any" for all of these if you never know the characteristics of the print you are to scan or if it all varies. If you always scan the same type of pages, e.g. letters, with the same quality of print, e.g. good quality, and the same layout, you can select these for all future scans to help TextBridge know what it is doing and speed scanning up. Otherwise, just make a change for a particular job and later use the "Reset" button to return things to how they were before, or make manual adjustments to return things. Press TAB again to "OK" and press ENTER if you are finished. Otherwise, CONTROL TAB to the other property sheets. 2. In the "Scanner" sheet: A. If you mostly scan good quality print, select "Good Print", otherwise ARROW down to "Difficult or Degraded", if you are scanning such as FAX or poor photocopied sheets. B. TAB to the type of print you normally scan--black and white, grey shades or colour. TextBridge will adjust the resolution of the scan according to the type of print scan you choose here. If you want to alter the resolution yourself, TAB to the "Custom" button and check it by pressing the SPACEBAR. You can then SHIFT TAB back once and ARROW up and down options of 200, 300, 400 and 600 DPI. You may wish to choose 400 DPI if scanning print smaller than eight point. C. Press TAB to "Page Size" and choose A4 to get the whole flatbed scanned, unless you always scan smaller sheets. D. TAB to the "Adjust Brightness" group, which may permit you to have the brightness automatically adjusted by TextBridge as it scans or, if you have automatic turned off, you can use your left and right ARROW keys to alter the brightness setting yourself. You turn automatic off by pressing the SPACEBAR. Then ARROWING left reduces the brightness for light sheets by one per cent each time you press it and moving right increases the brightness for darker sheets, e.g. those with dark print which is close together. The starting point is 50 per cent brightness. Note: Some cheaper or older scanners may not permit you to select the "Adjust Automatically" button. E. If you want to return the settings to what they were before, press ENTER on the "Reset" button. 3. In the "Processing" sheet: A. This is where your chosen language to scan in is listed and may be changed. B. TAB through the other controls and observe what is there, although most of this is of little use to visually impaired people because it involves building training files or user dictionaries, which you have to be able to see to do during the proofreading process. C. After making any changes TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to save all of the above changes at once. Then TAB to "OK" again and press ENTER again. Remember, these changes will hold for all future scans, so if you have only changed them for a one-off scan job, go back into these property sheets and either use the "Reset" buttons if you want the original TextBridge defaults to return, or make your own preference changes and save them by going to "OK". ******** >SECTION 13 TEXTBRIDGE HELP The TextBridge 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 TextBridge for--not reading print but, rather, capturing it for editing, reprinting, creating a filing system by saving documents after scanning them, etc. Unfortunately, this version of TextBridge has opted to use the Adobe PDF file format for its help text, so it is not as speech-friendly as it might otherwise be. 13.1. Types of Help TextBridge has a good array of different types of help, including: 13.1.1. Help Topics If you press the F1 key or press ALT H and ENTER on "TextBridge Help", you will be presented with a hierarchical list of help topic books. These are "Introducing TextBridge Pro", "Getting Started" . . . down to "Glossary". Pressing ENTER on any one of these "books" will open up another list of topics, which are subsections of the main topic. ARROWING down and pressing ENTER on one of these sub-topics will either cause your screenreader to 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 press ENTER on for the information. After listening to the help text, press the ESC key to close help. When you first enter the help facility with F1, you can also, if you prefer, press the TAB key to an "Open" button to open and have the contents of any particular book/topic you have highlighted read by ARROWING down the list and pressing ENTER on it. In this same series of tabs there is also a "print" button so that you can send the contents of a particular topic to your printer if this is of any value to you. 13.1.2. Menu Help When the focus is on a menu item, such as "New" in the "File" menu, you can press F1 to obtain an explanation of what that command does. 13.1.3. Dialogue Help When in a dialogue box, TAB to the "Help" button and press ENTER to obtain an overview explanation in respect of what the dialogue box is for. You can also put the system focus on the specific item you want details about (ARROW OR TAB to it) and then press F1 or SHIFT F1, when a short help message explaining what this item in the dialogue box is for will be spoken. 13.1.4. Index Help If you want to know what a particular technical word or phrase means, press ALT H, press ENTER on "TextBridge Help" and then press CONTROL TAB to move to the "Index". You will land in an editfield in which you can type the word 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. Press ESC to leave help. For example, with the focus on the Index tab, type in the editfield "Duel Page" (without the quotes) and then TAB to the list of found matches. Duel page will be there, so TAB again to "Display" and press ENTER. You will be told that duel page scanning is for page types which have two distinct sides and which you want to have scanned simultaneously but kept separate, such as when scanning two sides of a textbook together but with each page being seen as a different file. You may find reading help information easier in the "Index" tab rather than in the main PDF help "Contents". 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. 13.1.5. Website Help The TextBridge Internet Website contains files with answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), up-to-date listings of supported scanners, tips and other documents of interest. You can go to it via the "Visit TextBridge Website" option in the help menu. Press ALT H and ARROW down to this. You will be taken on line. ******** >APPENDIX 1 TEXTBRIDGE TECHNICAL SUPPORT If you cannot resolve installation or running problems with TextBridge by use of this manual, the online help topics and release notes, you can tap into the following resources: 1. Go to the TextBridge Internet site at: www.scansoft.com which has links to frequently asked questions (FAQs) , technical information sheets and a problem report form. 2. E-mail to: textbridge_support@europesupport.com 3. Telephone support(UK) (8 am to 8 pm) to: 0906 3500030 (6 pence a minute). 4. Telephone and FAX Support Outside the UK: Phone: +44 (0)142 9855005 (œ9.95 per call). FAX: +44 (0)142 9855042. The UK mailing address for registration of TextBridge is: Scansoft, Unit 8, Suttons Business park, Reading, RG6 1PZ. ******** >APPENDIX 2 LIST OF SHORTCUT KEYSTROKES F1--Opens the online help topics manual. DEL--deletes the selected text in a recognised document. CONTROL A--Selects all. CONTROL C--copies a selection to the Clipboard. CONTROL N--Clears the screen for a new scan job. CONTROL O--Lets you select the image file to process in manual mode. It brings up a list of sample tif image files which you can open and observe to be orientated, zoned, formatted, etc, in the way you would open one of your own image files if you had scanned a page manually but not yet had it recognised. CONTROL P--Pastes the contents of the Clipboard to the cursor position. CONTROL S--Saves the file. CONTROL X--Cuts (removes) the selection and places it in the Clipboard. CONTROL Z-Undoes the last action if you change your mind. CONTROL UP ARROW--Zooms in (enlarges). CONTROL DOWN ARROW--Zooms out (shrinks). CONTROL PAGE DOWN--Goes to the next page. CONTROL PAGE UP-- Goes to the previous page. ******** >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 4 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.