Customer Rating: 
Summary: Like a demolition derby-- crashes galore
Comment: It's bad enough that Omnipage Pro 14 Office crashes when you try to process a PDF file; bad enough that it crashes when you try to download an update from within the program (the only way ScanSoft allows you to do it)-- if there are solutions for these serious problems in their product, ScanSoft will not tell you about them unless you pay $9.95 per incident for e-mail support, $19.95 to actually speak to someone. What a lousy policy. What a crummy product!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Layout Retention is poor at best, hard to use
Comment: This is not a planted review. I'm just a home user. I have been using OmniPage for years. The last version I used prior to OmniPage Pro 14 was OmniPage Pro 10.
This version does the worst job of layout retention I have seen in any OCR software period. Version 10, the version I was using prior to upgrading worked much better.
Its hard to use, menus and features appear easy but in fact don't work very well at all. The system of "workflows" is flawed at best.
If you just want to take a simple text document with images and scan it into say word be prepared for a nightmare once in word. The result of your scan will retain very little of the layout of your original document.
ScanSoft makes some very fine products that I use. Oddly their "flayship" software OmniPage is difficult to use and performs poorly. Do yourself a favor and look at other OCR software before buying this.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Works great until you have a problem
Comment: OmniPage 14 worked great at first. Then I needed a patch to fix some problems I'm having with the Batch Manager. Their update function under help is broken. (Look at other recent posts by other users.) I tried calling yesterday ($20) and couldn't get through.
I'm well versed in fixing broken apps. After uninstalling/reinstalling, uninstalling/manually removing files and registry entries/reinstalling, I'm still having the same problems that are making it totally unusable. After searching Scansoft's website, and posting twice to their "user forums", I started looking for alternative solutions. I found more posts here than I did on Scansoft's site.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Updates Are Difficult -Tech Support Limited
Comment: Three things your readers might want to know: 1) There is no free online technical support ($10 per report sent is available) 2) You have one free call to tech support (then it is $20) 3) Updating the software is not through downloads from the website. The website lists that an SP1 is available for Omnipage Pro 14, but it can only be accessed through the help/webupdate feature in the program. Unfortunately the webudate doesn't work and though I have reported the bug twice, I got no communication from Sansoft and no information in their online "knowledge base" on how to solve this problem. Since I am in Europe, I haven't called their tech support, and in fact I am more than irritated that such a complicated method of software updates exists. When other software companies offer auto updates through the program (such as Microsoft Windows, Office, etc.) they also let you download directly when the auto method doesn't work or isn't convenient. I think your readers need to know the mindset of Sansoft before they buy a product that may be expensive and inconvenient to maintain.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sorry, the truth is that it is full of bugs.
Comment: The program worked OK on the laptop with the dedicated scanner. I tried to move it into the office and the thing would not let me save coverted documents. Yikes!!. I struggled for hours, reading manuals, going over settings etc. I downloaded service packs and had my IT person work on it for several hours. No luck. We tried everything. We changed operating systems. We changed word processors. We reinstalled and deinstalled. Support is useless. Even the support website is full of bugs. Try it yourself. If you can get into the community message board, you will see countless posts with complaints about this product. That's only if you can get in to see the posts. I tried a dozen times to read the posts and was bumped out to the main page, usually after being able to scan only one or two pages. Perhaps this program will work for you. Perhaps not. One thing is for sure, I fully believe the authenticity of the negative posts below. Don't take my word for it. Get the facts yourself. Just stop into the Scansoft website and read the community posts, if you can get in to see them.
Summary: Like a demolition derby-- crashes galore
Comment: It's bad enough that Omnipage Pro 14 Office crashes when you try to process a PDF file; bad enough that it crashes when you try to download an update from within the program (the only way ScanSoft allows you to do it)-- if there are solutions for these serious problems in their product, ScanSoft will not tell you about them unless you pay $9.95 per incident for e-mail support, $19.95 to actually speak to someone. What a lousy policy. What a crummy product!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Layout Retention is poor at best, hard to use
Comment: This is not a planted review. I'm just a home user. I have been using OmniPage for years. The last version I used prior to OmniPage Pro 14 was OmniPage Pro 10.
This version does the worst job of layout retention I have seen in any OCR software period. Version 10, the version I was using prior to upgrading worked much better.
Its hard to use, menus and features appear easy but in fact don't work very well at all. The system of "workflows" is flawed at best.
If you just want to take a simple text document with images and scan it into say word be prepared for a nightmare once in word. The result of your scan will retain very little of the layout of your original document.
ScanSoft makes some very fine products that I use. Oddly their "flayship" software OmniPage is difficult to use and performs poorly. Do yourself a favor and look at other OCR software before buying this.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Works great until you have a problem
Comment: OmniPage 14 worked great at first. Then I needed a patch to fix some problems I'm having with the Batch Manager. Their update function under help is broken. (Look at other recent posts by other users.) I tried calling yesterday ($20) and couldn't get through.
I'm well versed in fixing broken apps. After uninstalling/reinstalling, uninstalling/manually removing files and registry entries/reinstalling, I'm still having the same problems that are making it totally unusable. After searching Scansoft's website, and posting twice to their "user forums", I started looking for alternative solutions. I found more posts here than I did on Scansoft's site.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Updates Are Difficult -Tech Support Limited
Comment: Three things your readers might want to know: 1) There is no free online technical support ($10 per report sent is available) 2) You have one free call to tech support (then it is $20) 3) Updating the software is not through downloads from the website. The website lists that an SP1 is available for Omnipage Pro 14, but it can only be accessed through the help/webupdate feature in the program. Unfortunately the webudate doesn't work and though I have reported the bug twice, I got no communication from Sansoft and no information in their online "knowledge base" on how to solve this problem. Since I am in Europe, I haven't called their tech support, and in fact I am more than irritated that such a complicated method of software updates exists. When other software companies offer auto updates through the program (such as Microsoft Windows, Office, etc.) they also let you download directly when the auto method doesn't work or isn't convenient. I think your readers need to know the mindset of Sansoft before they buy a product that may be expensive and inconvenient to maintain.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sorry, the truth is that it is full of bugs.
Comment: The program worked OK on the laptop with the dedicated scanner. I tried to move it into the office and the thing would not let me save coverted documents. Yikes!!. I struggled for hours, reading manuals, going over settings etc. I downloaded service packs and had my IT person work on it for several hours. No luck. We tried everything. We changed operating systems. We changed word processors. We reinstalled and deinstalled. Support is useless. Even the support website is full of bugs. Try it yourself. If you can get into the community message board, you will see countless posts with complaints about this product. That's only if you can get in to see the posts. I tried a dozen times to read the posts and was bumped out to the main page, usually after being able to scan only one or two pages. Perhaps this program will work for you. Perhaps not. One thing is for sure, I fully believe the authenticity of the negative posts below. Don't take my word for it. Get the facts yourself. Just stop into the Scansoft website and read the community posts, if you can get in to see them.