Customer Reviews
Why would you remove a key feature? 
2007-10-17
I have been using Omnipage 14 for about 2 years. When 15 came out, I had my company purchase the upgrade (14 was good but could use some better features). My company regularly scans very large documents and ports them to an excel file so that the data can be imported into a database. 14 worked great for doing this, especially if you used the Workflow Assistant, since it would combine all the pages of the document into one tab in an Excel worksheet (if you don't use the Workflow, it seperates the pages onto seperate tabs). Imagine my dismay when, after installing 15, I found out that it now exports each page of the document onto separate tabs regardless of if you use Workflows or not!! With a 100 page document, that's hours of work to copy and paste all of that data onto one tab! When I called Nuance, their support told me that Omnipage was never able to export to just one excel tab, despite the fact that I have been doing it all along! So we decided to go back to using 14. Unfortunately due to a bug, once you install Windows Service Pack 2, you are no longer able to save your templates that you make in 14, rendering the program almost useless unless you want to take hours formatting each page for the OCR. I've tried searching Nuance's website for the answers to this technical problem, but their on-line help is meager at best and even has several dead links on it! Not to mention the strangely convenient dead links for the Omnipage community forum on-line, which might make a dent in Nuance's phone support cash cow. I would not recommend any product which removes a key feature in a so-called "upgrade". I was told by support that this feature is still absent from 16. This product would be suitable for a company that only handles very small OCR jobs, and can get by without needing customer support. As for my company, after using Omnipage for several years, we have decided to move onto other products.
Fast and easy 
2007-09-30
Altough this product has many options that I'll probably never use, I had received a number of printed documents from our finance department that I needed to change and use in a presentation. Rather than retyping and recreating the whole thing (would have taken me several hours) I scanned and OCR with OmniPage and saved in Excel. So I started to edit in less than 10 minutes...
Bloats PDF files to four times their original size 2007-09-04
I purchased this to create searchable pdf images from standard pdf images on the fly. Unfortunately, if you use any of the automated options via the batch manager, it will create bloated files that are three to four times the size of the original. If you manually run each document through Omnipage, the size remains the same or sometimes even reduces the amount of disk space used. This is a significant bug that tech support hasn't addressed yet. So if you don't mind using it manually for every document, then it's OK. Otherwise, wait for a fix.
Not up to my expectations 2007-08-31
I have been a long time user of OmniPage, going way back to version 4. I have regularly updated every 2 years or so, often enjoying the speed or work flow improvements.
I upgraded to OmniPage 16 via an email solicitation and decided to buy it. Unfortunately after a successful install, registration, and activation, the software would not run. The splash screen would display, and then the program would end.
At this point I come face to face with Nuance support and realize I should have read the support for this product before buying. I could find nothing in the online Knowledge Base forum related to my problem. Phone support is a toll call, and requires long periods of hold, and costs $19.95 per incident (with the first one free). Email support is $9.95 per incident.
Luckily the phone support was able to solve my problem in about an hour. I had to install and run some special snooping software which gathered my system information which I mailed to the support team. Unfortunately, I have now used up my one free incident and won't pursue some of the other bugs I see. Be sure you are comfortable with this limited software support before buying.
This product borders on fraud! 
2008-05-18
I just made the singularly bad mistake of buying this software at the local Fry's Electronics (at full price no less), only to find that it won't even start up on my system, even after a successful install! And it is only at this point that I learn about the fact that they charge you for service support. This is crazy!
It is simply unacceptable to not provide some sort of free support, or at the very least a better FAQ that addresses this problem, since plainly I'm not the only one suffering it.
***STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY AND ITS PRODUCTS*** Lack of free support for their buggy product borders on out and out FRAUD. For all intents and purposes I'm out $[...] plus whatever I wasted in taxes on this POS.
Obviously, much blame attaches to me personally for not doing my homework and just impulse buying. (In my defense, I seldom buy specialty software like this, so I'm a bit of a neophyte). I will NEVER do this again.
FYI - Currently I'm running Win2K, SP4, but have plans to upgrade to XP. I can only pray these problems will go away at that point.
Meets the basic needs 
2008-02-26
The product meets my needs (article review and editing). I did experience a problem with registration and activation but was able to overcome the issue with perseverance. Much depends on expectations. Most of the work I do involves editing text. Perhaps for other more involved work this program may not be suitable (OP16 Pro?). Installation went well and the program appears to be performing well.
Extremely frustrating 2008-02-18
I bought a scanner, which came with free ScanSoft software. I spent hours scanning a hundred page document. Then along came an upgrade offer - buy OmniPage 16 Pro (the continuation of the ScanSoft heritage). So I did. And found out that my previuosly saved OPD files were not compatible with the new version.
OmniPage 16 Pro is very buggy. Clicking on help has caused the app to become non-responsive. Shift clicking on a zone has caused the app to close, wiping out other apps that were running at the same time. It is enormously quirky, and has a difficult to use user interface - as though it was written by people who have never used a great interface. There are so many configurable items that it's impossible to learn (the Help doesn't), and if you try to experiment with them, you're likely to lose work.
My most recent frustration is that I've saved a book of 50 pages, and now want to add to it. I select the "add pages and continue processing" option, and it throws away all my work on the previously saved pages - meaning I have to rezone them, reproof them, etc.
If you really, really need to get documents scanned, hire a team of monkeys and have them do it. It will cost about the same, and you'll get about the same results.
Don't waste your money on it 2007-12-11
I purchased Omnipage to convert scanned image-only PDF's into image-text PDF's. Every PDF comes through in horrible resolution. I spent several hours search their Support site, and couldn't find anything related to my problem. I also search the web and found other people complaining about the same problem, but no solutions.
I'll never buy a product from Nuance again.
NUance=NOsupport 2007-12-10
if you need reasonable support, DO NOT BUY anything from noserviceNuance. this product has glitches that will eat memory and ignore commands from the menu bar; that's only the start of terrible experiences. from there, you get one free contact with semi-literate support, and then have to pay them for them to try to correct problems with their product. STAY AWAY unless you are a guru.
