[nabs-l] Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) vs. Kurzweil

Fri Apr 26 14:21:48 UTC 2013

This is a tricky subject, and I think one should be careful of simple answers.  The off-the-shelf products are much cheaper as Joe 
said, but depending upon the product and the version, the interfaces can be challenging.  a knowledgeable computer user should be 
able to use FineReader or OmniPage and many of us have done that.  However, for many, the simpler interfaces of Kurzweil 1000 and 
Open Book may be worth the extra price, especially if one can justify having it paid for.  I think I would try to get a demo of 
FineReader before deciding for certain that it is for you, unless you feel you are a pretty experienced computer user.  Many state 
agencies are used to paying for Kurzweil or Open Book, and I don't see the down side of going that route if it is available to 
you.

I think you will find that most scanners will work with Kurzweil 1000 or FineReader if they have drivers for the operating system 
you are using.  It is hard for me to imagine that you will find a scanner that would work with Kurzweil that does not work with 
FineReader or OmniPage.  There are older scanners that will not work with Windows 7, and I suspect the same might be true of 
Windows 8, and this would affect both programs.  

Finally, in terms of character recognition, Kurzweil gives you the choice of either using the OmniPage or the FineReader 
recognition "engine" as they call it.  In other words, the actual recognition of text is going to be about the same whether you 
are using Kurzweil or FineReader.  Therefore, I think that the claim that FineReader will work ten times better is a bit of an 
exaggeration.  <smile>  However, that also means that it is fair to say that the high price you pay for something like Kurzweil or 
Open Book is not for better character recognition but rather for an interface that is easier to use.  Is that worth the extra 
money?  To some it is not, but to some it is.  The question isn't whether one can use FineReader or OmniPage, the question is 
rather whether they can use the off-the-shelf products as efficiently as they can use Kurzweil 1000 or Open book, and whether the 
difference in efficiency is worth it.  The answers are different for different people.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:04:33 -0400, Justin Young wrote:

>Hi Joe,

>Do you need a specific scanner to go with this product or will any one
>work fine?  I was told that with Kurzweil you had to use specific
>scanners that would only work with Kurzweil.  Thanks for the
>suggestion haven't heard of this product before so I'm gonna
>definitely look into it.

>Justin

>On 4/25/13, Joe <jsoro620 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi, go with ABBYY Finereader. It's a mainstream off-the-shelf product, is a
>> lot cheaper than the assistive options, and works ten times better than
>> Kurzweil or Openbook ever will.--Joe
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Justin Young
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 4:02 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) vs. Kurzweil
>>
>> Hi Jane,
>>
>> Thank you for your response.  How do you like it?  Is it simple to use?  I
>> don't know much about the devise, but sounded interesting from what I read.
>>
>> On 4/23/13, Jane <juanitatighan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I have a SARA right on the thing above my desk. It won't handle
>>> hand-written stuff. Very few scanning solutions can, because
>>> han-writing is so different for every one.
>>>
>>> Jane
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 23, 2013, at 3:45 PM, Justin Young <jty727 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Hope you are doing well.  I was wondering if any of you have used a
>>>> devise called Scanning And Reading Appliance (SARA) from Freedom
>>>> Scientific?  I currently have Kurzweil, but was interested in hearing
>>>> if anyone knew if it handled documents better than Kurzweil?  For
>>>> example, at least with my version of Kurzweil, you can't really do
>>>> anything with handwritten text.  Can SARA support these types of
>>>> documents?  Just curious if anyone first hand could provide any
>>>> information on this devise.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Justin
>>>>
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