I wanted to thank James Byrne for his plug for FineWriter from AABBY software.

<more plug>

I needed to get some documents up and looked around for the US Distributor. After finding a couple sites, who might have a cheaper price, I settled for one that allows ordering by Phone (a 1(800) number with a person who actually answers the phone, instead of a recording machine!), and / or, off the net,  and allows try before buying:

http://www.smartlinkcorp.com/

They are very courteous and I got the AABBY FineWriter Professional 4.0 the next day. I had ordered the Standard Edition, but they had run out, so shipped the Professional Version for the same price.

It does a marvelous job scanning, considering that I also got an HP ScanJet 5300c, which doesn't scan those characters in quite as well as I would have hoped, given the reputation of the manufacturer (ahem) and the price I paid.

This FineWriter is great stuff!

</plug>

<new plug>

A week later, I purchased SmartScore from Musitek. It too, does a marvelous job, using a page scanner to transform sheet music to electronic formatted music, such as MIDI files. It has the graphic page scanned on the top of the split screen, and the score below. You can edit the notes and notations and then play sections of the music until you get it right. (I'm a Leroy Anderson fan and want to build a nearly complete collection of his music in MIDI files.)

Again, the only complaint I have is the hardware.

</new plug>

No, I don't own stock or have a financial interest in these products (except the purchase price).

Again, thank you James for timely information!

Isn't HP3000-L just grand?!

>>> "James B. Byrne" <[log in to unmask]> 07/17 9:07 AM >>>
><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
>mailto:[log in to unmask]  Canada L8E 3C3