The Best-Coded OCR Software?

[rhyzome]

Hi--
I do a lot of work photographing books/texts, processing the images into black/white "photocopy-like" documents in Aperture, and then using OCR software to make the documents searchable PDFs for my own academic use.

I've been experimenting lately with trials of ABBYY Finereader and the new Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 15. I notice that Acrobat makes use of the dGPU in my 15" rMBP 2014 (quad core, 2.5 Ghz, 16GB RAM) while Finereader doesn't seem to--although I notice that Finereader REALLY activates the fans and creates 3 processes using 99% of the CPU, while Acrobat seems to not cause that much heat-stress and only creates one process using 100-108% of the CPU, according to Activity Monitor, and makes use of the "High Perf GPU".

I'm not the most technically gifted on these forums and would like to know if one or the other is making more efficient use of my system's resources. Might anyone know if one is coded better than the other? If one has better performance in OCR? (They both seem to take a long time to scan the book-length documents I work with, and I haven't bothered using a stopwatch).

Because I do high volume (300+ pg scans) pretty frequently/regularly, it is important to me to know that I'm stressing my machine in the most efficient/smart way possible and doing this the best way!

What is the best-coded, most efficient and effective OCR software for a mac like mine?

 

[HDFan]

You might want to look at ReadIris which has multiprocessor support.

http://www.irislink.com/c2-2236-189...--Scan--Convert---Manage-your-Documents-.aspx

Batch support seems to be limited to the Corporate version. Here's the version 15 link (15 not yet available for the Mac):

http://www.irislink.com/c2-3095-189/Readiris-15-for-Windows--Find-your-version.aspx

ReadIris was included with HP printers a few years ago. Not sure if that's still the case.

 

[ChrisA]

I think you need to do some experiments. Results might be different for different CPU/GPU combinations and different amounts of RAN and so on.

I'd think you care most about the results and the amount of hand corrections you need to make and the way it handles diagrams and the like.

 

[elf55]

hammer vs nail

Agree with above. You need to test the results and not worry about your computer. You have the computer because you have a job to do, so use it. You won't break it. As long as the times are not substantially longer with one product (order of magnitude longer), then use the tool that produces the best output.

 

[neutrino23]

I suggest you take a look at Prizmo.

http://www.creaceed.com/prizmo

I have used OCR a little over the years. I had hoped to use it on the iPhone but was disappointed with OCR in scanning apps till I came across this at Macworld. For me it did a great job of OCR on the iPhone and iPad.

They also have an OS X version. If you download from their store you can use the free trial version. Full disclosure, I have not tried the OS X version.

This is an interesting company. They perform OCR in 40 languages. The OS X version even includes a lens distortion correction.

 

[keysofanxiety]

ReadIris. It comes free with ClaroRead Plus/Pro if that software is useful to you as well.