Shockingly terrible - surprised this survived the App Store’s minimum threshold requirement
Shockingly terrible - surprised this survived the App Store’s minimum threshold requirement. What it does offer feels like a free plugin not a professional piece of software.
This is one of those programs clearly designed for PC and then shoehorned into OSX. Ugly and disjointed interface. What features it does have are not intuitively accessible but are buried beneath an obscure interface.
The OCR technology is adequate, albeit remarkably slow compared with Adobe, or even free solutions such as Google Drive or Evernote.
Although named and priced as a professional product, this feels and operates like a stripped-down version. As mentioned by other reviewers, FineReader Pro has no batch processing capabilities. Don’t even think about automating processes using this App. I was shocked to learn that this product cannot even convert a color PDF text document into a black-and-white PDF text document. The program will not open files with filenames containing commas, colons, or several other characters. Sure, I could write a script to change all my file names. But who knows how many other shortcomings this program has, and I certainly don’t intend to find out—I’ve replaced this program with another.
Importantly, an App is more than just the code that runs—or in FineReader Pro’s case: trudges—on your computer. Technical support is essential for any program sold for professional purposes. Do NOT expect any technical support for this App. The company’s website provides limited tech support documents and you may find an independent forum dealing with user issues. However, these are for other versions of the software and do not apply, even remotely, to the FineReader Pro offered through the App store. After registering the program with the developer, you can use the form on their website to submit questions. Don’t expect any live or realtime support. Instead, expect artful dodging of basic questions after days of unresponsiveness.
Microsoft and Adobe programs are far from perfect, but with their multitude of users, you can Google a technical question, and not only receive official documentation on that issue relating to your exact version of the program, but you can read blogs, tech support forums, or even get youtube videos showing you exactly how to solve your problem. Likely, you will stumble onto manners of doing things that never would have occurred to you. FineReader offers you NOTHING of this sort.
Terrible program, and I’ve given up on it. Moved onto much better PDF and OCR solutions and will not return to this developer. This company does not have the integrity to stand by its product or to issue a refund or alternative satisfaction for its defunct “professional” product.
Rugger8675309 about FineReader OCR Pro
