Readiris Pro 15

Overview

Readiris Pro is optical character recognition software that is capable of turning an image containing text into a textual document that can be accessed by many other applications. The software will isolate, identify and process images pulling out the characters within the image and turning this into a Word, PDF, Excel or other format file.

The program can import scans, images, photographs and existing PDF files containing graphical content and then convert this into readable text. The software removes the need to re-type written content into a fresh document and in so doing it can save the user many hours of wasted time in the process.

Digitizing older books that are showing their age with the binding coming apart and the risk of pages being lost is possible with OCR software which can read each page scan and create one seamless final PDF, text or ePub file for an e-reading tablet to access.

Readiris Pro includes convenient cloud features. Documents can be exported to the cloud to be hosted there during the conversion process. Their cloud can then be used to access converted documents on the road.

Installation

The installation completed without any issues. The package requires over 300MB of available hard drive space.

There was no adware, toolbars, malware or spyware included in the setup package.

Readiris Pro requires Microsoft Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP.

Interface

Readiris Pro has adopted a similar interface to the ribbon UI of Microsoft Office with its menu system that opens up a different set of toolbar options depending on which menu category is clicked on. The toolbar is large enough to incorporate labels for each button making it much easier to navigate through the various options which hare quite expansive across the entire application.

The menu sections are for Home, Zones, Page, Cloud Setup, View, and Help.

The pages of an open document are displayed in thumbnail view down the left Pages pane. Each color page thumbnail is large enough to get a general sense of the layout for each page which makes it easier to spot the page one wants to select in order to bring it up in the main viewer to the right. The currently selected page is highlighted and each page gets its own page number.

Overall, the interface is nicely put together. It takes a potentially confusing array of program options and has made them seem more understandable.

Pros

• Scan images and documents and convert them into a text-readable format like DOC, TXT or EPUB file
• Take shots of a report or book and convert it into a format more easily readable on a tablet or Kindle e-reading device
• Convert OCR'd documents to Excel, Word, PDF, Audio files, or eBook formats
• Work with existing PDF files to add pages, merge pages, edit pages, rotate some pages, compress pages and straighten out the orientation when page scans were misaligned
• Ribbon UI interface

Cons

• The software will make read errors on certain documents and so will need proof reading and editing before saving the final version

Alternatives

SimpleOCR is one of the few free OCR scanners that includes a 15 day trial of their hand-writing recognition module.

Conclusion

Readiris Pro is useful OCR software tool for anyone who wishes to convert scanned pages to accessible text.