Table of Contents Copyrights......................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 Introducing the IRISPen..................................................... 3 What is the IRISPen? ...................................................................................3 How does it work?........................................................................................5 The steps to follow... ..................................................
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide Enabling speech synthesis ..........................................................................34 Adjusting the image....................................................................................35 Chapter 5 Additional options ............................................................. 39 Ending sound..............................................................................................39 Left-handed scanning ..........................................
Copyrights Copyrights ©1993-2007 I.R.I.S. All Rights Reserved. The IRISPen Mini, the IRISPen Express, the IRISPen Executive, the IRISPen Translator software were designed and developed by I.R.I.S. OCR ("Optical Character Recognition") and Linguistic technology by I.R.I.S. I.R.I.S.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING THE IRISPEN WHAT IS THE IRISPEN? The IRISPen is a hand-held pen scanner and software that allows you to scan data and instantly convert it into real editable text with the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology of I.R.I.S. The result is directly available in any Windows or Mac application. Major applications You will use the IRISPen to scan and enter into your active application any of the following: - notes and short entries like addresses, phone numbers, etc.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide barcodes, handprinting, dot matrix text, scan multiple lines at a time, or even read out or translate the scanned lines. The IRISPen series Here is the IRISPen series. Each version offers a different range of functionalities. - IRISPen Mini (+ Asian version) - IRISPen Express (+ Asian version)* - IRISPen Executive (+ Asian version)* - IRISPen Translator (*) Available for Windows and for Mac OS X.
CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCING THE IRISPEN The OCR technology The IRISPen integrates the latest OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine developed by I.R.I.S. It is able to recognize lines of text with top accuracy in up to 125 languages. All American and European languages are supported, including Central-European languages. Greek, Turkish, the Cyrillic ("Russian") and the Baltic languages and Hebrew are also supported.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide in the center of the scanning head, directly under the guide line. ! Yellow is the IRISPen's invisible color. It cannot be picked up by the scanner. Do not scan any data printed in yellow. Also see: Additional options: Left-handed scanning, Vertical text (optional), Negative image. Warning: The pen scanning band is 0.41" (10.5mm.) high and covers in many cases several lines of text.
CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCING THE IRISPEN Incorrect positions • Once you have reached the end of the line, lift the IRISPen. Make sure you lift it after the last character of the line. ! Do not scan a line longer than 12" (30.5 cm). The scanning stops as soon as this line length is exceeded. • Operate exactly the same way for the next line. Also see: Additional options: Multiple lines.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide THE STEPS TO FOLLOW... Here are the main guidelines to follow for using your IRISPen. Detailed instructions are provided later in this manual . Use the Table of Contents and the Index at the end of the manual to find the needed information. 1. Define your settings in the IRISPen application Before you start using the IRISPen, you must tune the software. Depending on the type of data you intend to read - text, barcodes, dot matrix text, etc.
CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCING THE IRISPEN scanning. Use the Scan window (see: Starting up: The application windows) to judge the image quality and the recognition results. If necessary, operate some image adjustments via the Palette window.
CHAPTER 2 INSTALLATION SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Here is the minimal system configuration required to use the IRISPen for Mac OS X: • A MAC OS computer with either a PowerPC (minimum G3)- or an Intel processor. • The operating system MAC OS X version 10.3.9 (PowerPC chip), or version 10.4.3 ("Tiger - Mac OS X on Intel") (Intel chip). • 150 MB of free hard disk space. • A free USB port. The IRISPen requires a USB port that provides sufficient power: USB ports on the computer and USB "hubs" do fine.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide To install the IRISPen: • First start your computer and log on as administrator or make sure you have the necessary administration rights. • Insert the CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive. • Double-click on the CD-ROM icon from the desktop. The IRISPen window appears. • Double-click on the IRISPen Installer icon to run the installation. Then fill in your name and password and follow the on-screen instructions.
CHAPTER 2 - INSTALLATION USA - Hotline 1-561-921-0847 / 800-447-4744 (working hours) - Fax: 1-561-921-0854 - support@irisusa.com HOW TO REGISTER? Don't forget to register your IRISPen! By doing so, you will: - be kept informed of future product developments and related I.R.I.S. products, - be entitled to free product support - be entitled to special offers on I.R.I.S. products How to register? Registration form You can directly access the registration form on the I.R.I.S. Web site: http://www.irislink.
CHAPTER 3 STARTING UP THE APPLICATION WINDOWS The IRISPen Palette The IRISPen Palette appears above the dock, on the left side. It comprises a series of buttons that give access to all basic parameters. A tooltip appears when you hold the mouse cursor over each of its button. The IRISPen Palette can be hidden using the closing button on the top corner or using the Hide Palette option from the View menu. To reopen it, select Show Palette from the View menu.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide The Scan window The Scan window appears above the dock. It allows you to see the image you generate with your pen. You can use it to check the quality of the scanning. By default, the image produced is a grayscale image. You can display a black&white version of the image by deselecting the option Grayscale Image from the View menu. The window contains a Status bar that gives information to the user.
CHAPTER 3 - STARTING UP CALIBRATING THE PEN SCANNER Before you start using the IRISPen, you must calibrate the pen scanner. If you don't calibrate the scanner, the image quality will be low and the recognition results may be mediocre. You are automatically prompted to calibrate the pen scanner when running the software for the first time. All you need to do is push your pen on a white piece of paper for a few seconds. The software indicates when the calibration is complete.
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CHAPTER 4 BASIC PARAMETERS SELECTING THE READING MODE Before you start using the IRISPen, you must select the appropriate reading mode. The reading mode determines the nature of the data to be scanned and read with your pen. To select the Reading mode: • Click on Select the reading mode in the IRISPen Palette or select Reading Mode from the Settings menu, and select the appropriate reading mode: Text (default value) To read machine-printed text in a certain language.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide languages in the IRISPen Palette or select Languages from the Settings menu, and select Numeric. By doing so, you will limit the set of used characters to numeric symbols only and eliminate any possible confusion between figures and letters like "5" and "S", ""9" and "g", "8" and "B", etc. Bar Codes To read bar codes. Select this option to read barcodes exclusively. The resulting character string will directly appear in the target application.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS Automatic (default value) To read "normal" text in any printing quality: typeset, typewritten, laser printed, inkjet printed, letter quality dot matrix printed texts and draft dot matrix printing. The IRISPen detects the font mode automatically. Dot Matrix To read draft dot matrix text exclusively, i.e. to read the socalled "Draft" or "9 pin" dot matrix text, which is made up of isolated, separate dots. Spaced Handprinting: To read spaced handprinting, i.e.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide more rejected characters in the reading result. If the rejection threshold is decreased, there will be less rejected characters in the result, but the level of possible errors will be higher. For applications where extreme accuracy is essential, you should set a high rejection level. To adjust the rejection level, use the up and down arrows on the right. SELECTING THE LANGUAGE You must indicate the language in which the data is to be read.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS To select the language: • Click on Lists of available languages in the IRISPen Palette or select Languages from the Settings menu, and select the language in which the data is to be read in the list of available languages. The top part of the list gathers the languages that were selected recently. Click on Other to access the whole list of available languages. Either browse through the list or simply press the first letter of the needed language.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide CHOOSING THE OUTPUT TARGET You can choose the way the read data is being inserted in your active application: either via "keyboard emulation", which sends the data directly into the active application, or via the clipboard, which requires a manual Paste or CTRL+V command. You can also determine some other elements such as the font and the size of the inserted data.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS clipboard before it is pasted (automatically or not, see below) in the active application. If the data is pasted automatically (default value, see below), this method is quicker than Keyboard Emulation. If the data is not pasted automatically (see below), this allows e.g. to change the cursor location in the active application before the data is inserted. Scanning multiple lines You can scan multiple lines at the same time and send them to the clipboard.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide Otherwise, you must paste the data manually with the Paste or CTRL+V command. PROGRAMMING THE PEN BUTTONS (SINGLE AND DOUBLE CLICK) Your pen scanner is equipped with two buttons. The simple and double click of each pen button can be programmed so as to execute an operation in the target application. By simply pressing the pen buttons, you will thus be able to execute key sequences, add characters, switch from one reading mode to another, etc.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS - single click: - double click: Right button: - single click: - double click: • Select the button to be programmed (left or right), then select the operation to be executed with a single click and/or double click (use the arrows on the right). Click OK to confirm and close the window. Frequent operations are proposed. The User String option can be used to program custom operations. None This corresponds to a "null" operation.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide Switch reading mode This allows you to program the switch to the next reading mode in the list of reading modes available. See: Basic parameters, Selecting the reading mode. If the current reading mode is Text, this will make you switch to the Bar Codes reading mode. If the current reading mode is Bar Codes, this will make you switch to the Image reading mode. Remember that the reading mode is always specified in the Status window.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS • Indicate how the scanned area must be isolated and what the output should be: - keep all scanned characters - keep all characters before the last space - keep all characters after the first space - keep all characters between the first and the last space Ignore rejected characters in first and last position If characters are not properly scanned or read at the beginning or at the end of a line (these are by default represented by a tilde, i.e.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide to recompose the word "president" in the output: "The new president waved from the balcony". Select this option if you want to delete end hyphens. Note: If hyphens are deleted, the suffixes (see below) will automatically be deleted so that the words can be properly recomposed. Prefix You can have the IRISPen execute operations automatically in the target application, either before or after the output result.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS Similarly, the subset used for reading English differs from the one used for reading French (think of the "é", "è", "û", etc. that do not exist in English), etc. By using a specific subset of characters, the software eliminates the chances of recognition errors. For example, if you select the reading mode Numeric, you limit the set of recognized characters to numeric symbols only. By doing so, no confusion can possibly made "5" and "S", ""9" and "g", "8" and "B", etc.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide • To add/remove groups of characters to/from the default subset, select or deselect the proposed selections, then click OK to confirm. All: Select all characters of the subset defined according to the chosen reading mode and language. A-Z: Select all upper-case letters from A to Z a-z: Select all lower-case letters from A to Z 0-9: Select all numbers between 0 and 9 Character string: Type in any character to be added to the subset.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS To fine-tune the barcode reading: • Click on Lists all supported barcodes in the IRISPen Palette or select Bar Codes from the Settings menu. • If needed, tick the option Verify and Erase Check Digit to enable the verification of the bar codes check character(s) and have it stripped out from the recognition results. • Select/deselect the bar code types according to the bar codes you wish to read.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide ENABLING SPEECH SYNTHESIS Thanks to the speech synthesis, you can make the IRISPen speak out the recognized data for you*. Just scan some data and the computer reads it out for you! (*) The speech synthesis feature is available in English. Practically, you will no longer need to look up to the screen to verify your recognition results. Think how useful this will be when encoding new data, entering data into your bookkeeping, etc.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS • If you intend to read whole sentences, select the scanning mode Multiple lines. This will ensure a natural prosody, a good intonation, and the insertion of pauses. See: Additional options, Multiple lines. • Click on Enable Speech in the IRISPen Palette or select Speech from the Options menu. As soon as data is being scanned, it is spoken out by your computer. If the beep sound was enabled, it is automatically disabled and replaced by the speech.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide To adjust the scanned image: • Click on Adjust the Image in the IRISPen Palette or select Adjust Image from the Options menu. Adjust the settings as follows. The resulting image is directly dislayed in the Scan window. Smoothen image The Smoothen image option renders the images more homogeneous by "flattening", smoothening out relative differences in intensity. As a result, a sharper contrast is created between the text and the background.
CHAPTER 4 - BASIC PARAMETERS Automatic brightness is set by default. You should leave this default setting for all normal documents. Manual When dealing with bad quality documents, changing manually the brightness level may level the quality of the black&white image and so improve the text recognition. To set the brightness manually, click Manual, then slide the indicator to the left (lighten) or to the right (darken).
CHAPTER 5 ADDITIONAL OPTIONS ENDING SOUND The Sound option enables to activate a beep sound during the scanning: you will hear a beep sound when the pen scanner stops scanning and when the recognized data is being sent to the target application or clipboard. To activate the beep sound: • Select Sound from the Options menu. You can choose a sound within a wide range of possible sounds. Select the sound that you prefer. The option None is used to deactivate the ending sound.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide LEFT-HANDED SCANNING By default, the pen scanner is set to operate from left to right, but you can adapt the scanning direction and scan from right to left. You will follow this scanning direction if you are left-handed. You will also operate this way if you intend to read right-to-left text like e.g. in Hebrew. To scan from right to left: • Select the option Left-handed Scanning under the Options menu.
CHAPTER 5 - ADDITIONAL OPTIONS Note: If you select Hebrew as recognition language, the option Left-handed Scanning will be grayed out. VERTICAL TEXT (OPTIONAL) If you intend to read some Asian vertical text, you must tell the software that the text flow is vertical rather than horizontal. The new text flow will be indicated in the Status window.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide NEGATIVE IMAGE With the IRISPen, you can scan negative images, i.e. light text or graphics on a dark background. The image produced by scanning is automatically inverted by the software and displayed in the Scan window: the black pixels will become white, and the white pixels will become black. The recognition is carried out on the inverted image. To scan negative images: • Select the option Negative Image under the Options menu.
CHAPTER 5 - ADDITIONAL OPTIONS MULTIPLE LINES You can scan multiple lines at the same time, i.e. within the same scan. This is particularly useful if you want to capture whole excerpts of text from books, magazines, etc. The various lines of text will be buffered, then released with the click on a pen button. To read multiple lines: • Select the option Multiple Lines from the Settings menu. • Scan the various lines one by one.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide • At the end of your scan, click any pen button to trigger the output process. SMALL PRINT The IRISPen scanning band is 0.41" (10.5mm.) high. It can thus read characters having point sizes of 8 to 20. If you have to read data printed in a font size smaller than 10 point, you must activate the Small print option. This will help you get optimized results with the IRISPen. To read small text: • Select the option Small print from the Settings menu.
CHAPTER 5 - ADDITIONAL OPTIONS UNKNOWN SYMBOL If characters are not properly recognized by the IRISPen, they are by default represented by a tilde, i.e. a "~" symbol, in the recognition result. If you wish to, you can choose another symbol. You can select a different symbol than the default tilde. To define the symbol for unknown characters: • Select the option Unknown Symbol from the Settings menu. • Replace the symbol in the required field, then click OK to confirm.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide to use specific terms or symbols that were not present on the original document. For example, you can replace the currency "USD" that appears on the original document by the corresponding symbol "$" in your active application. You can replace an abbreviation by its full name, you can erase data, e.g. replace "$" by nothing so that "$2.99" becomes "2.99", etc.
CHAPTER 5 - ADDITIONAL OPTIONS Once string conversions have been defined, you can edit or remove them. You can also browse the list of existing conversions by clicking on the down arrow of the Convert field. TABLE FRAME CONVERSION The IRISPen is able to detect and convert vertical lines separating data as e.g. table columns. By default, the software replaces vertical lines by the command.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide To define the table frame conversion: • Select Table Frame Conversion from the Settings menu, then select the required keyboard command. By default, the command is selected. Select User String to introduce your own table frame conversion, then click OK to confirm. You can execute any other keyboard command, add characters, or any combination of all.
CHAPTER 6 SAVING SETTINGS SAVE/OPEN/RESTORE SETTINGS When you launch the IRISPen for the first time, options are selected by default (e.g.: reading mode: Text, language: English, etc.). These selected options form the so-called "factory settings". You will of course change these default settings to make the IRISPen perfectly fit your particular needs. Once your own settings have been defined, you can save them as default or even save them in a specific file.
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide Save... You can save your custom settings in a file, rather than save them as the default settings. You can save as many custom settings as you wish. At any moment in time, you will be able to reopen any of them. When quitting and reopening the IRISPen, the application will open again with the default settings. Open... This option offers to reopen any of the custom settings saved in a file.
INDEX A alignment ....................................28 application window.....................15 asian languages ...........................41 B dot matrix ................................... 19 F factory settings ........................... 49 H handprinting ............................... 19 barcodes......................................19 handwriting................................. 19 beep sound ..................................39 holding the pen ............................. 5 brightness......
IRISPen Executive 6 - User's guide left-handed users.........................40 N negative image............................42 P scan............................................... 5 scan from right to left ................. 40 Scan window .............................. 15 scanning........................................ 5 Palette .........................................15 scanning band ............................... 5 pen buttons..................................26 settings (customize) ............
Index U unknown characters ....................45 unknown symbol.........................45 user interface language ............... 15 Y yellow........................................... 5 use the IRISPen ........................
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