<PLUG>

For those of you that have cause to scan large numbers of
original paper documents for final delivery in electronic format,
whether PDF or otherwise, I can heartily recommend a
product called FineReader 4.  This OCR software is produced
in Russia and is almost frightenly good.

There is a free trial version available for download from the web
but unfortunately I don't have the URL to hand.  The company
name is AABBY software and they have a US distributor.  In
fact I received my copy in Canada the morning after I ordered
it from their web page.  The cost for the professional version is
about $460.00 USD.

They also have a standard version which is about 1/2 or 2/3
the price and is more than sufficient if you are just scanning
text.  The professional adds the ability to create form
templates and load data from specific areas of pre-printed
forms directly into ODBC data sinks.  The advanced version
handles hand written (printed not cursive) documents.

All versions of the product support multiple languages, both
latin and cyrillic based.  The application is twain compliant so
that you scan and convert within the application program.  Its
accuracy is extremely high, and I mean extremely.  In fact, I
have never before used a program that exceeded my
expectations for both ease of use and quality of output to such
a degree, and never before on a Windows platform.

No, I don't own stock, but I wish I did.

Regards,
Jim


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James B. Byrne                Harte & Lyne Limited
vox: +1 905 561 1241          9 Brockley Drive
fax: +1 905 561 0757          Hamilton, Ontario
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