Q00P  To start with, buying this software gets you an email stating:

Your software key is XXXX

Please note that this software key will not work if you reinstall your software, you can ask a new software key when needed through our customer service:

- for North America: supportusa@irislink.com

- for other countries: support@irislink.com

Eh? What? We need to ask for a new key on reinstall? Okay, fine!

Stupid, but let's install the software since we paid for it...

I am sorry but, having used this software in a business setting for 7 months, we would like to let you know that this is NOT WORTH PAYING FOR. We have struggled all the time, and finally we saw the light. The computer crashed and we needed to reinstall OS X from scratch, plus all applications. Starting Readiris it asks for the software key. Hm, bugger! Mailing support@irislink.com for a key. 24 hours later, STILL NO KEY!

As a business we are stranded until we get another key. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!  
(Version 11.6.2)

ISAW  I click to download a demo, fill in my email and country and I am taken to some flash demos that say I get a special offer if I watch them. I then get an email saying, " You recently requested a flash demo about Readiris Pro 11 features." NO I DID NOT, I wanted to download a demo of the application. If you don't do one, don't offer one.

The offer is $59.99-US/Canada, EUR99.99-Rest of World = GBP76.60 or $155.51. What type of special offer is it that insultingly, over charges the Rest of the World?

You can keep your product and your 'special' offer insult.  
(Version 11.6.2)

JIMW  If it does not seem to work with your scanner and you are using Leopard or Tiger on an Intel Mac--

Try doing a ;'Get Info' on the app and checking the 'Rosetta' Box. It worked for me.   
(Version 11.6.2)

YORAM  the price they charge for the non-us market is a rip-off: EUR 159.99 - which is something about USD 241,65 compared to the US/Canada price-tag of USD 129,99. converted to EUR 86,06. no. more. words.  
(Version 11.6.2)

JIMW  A user response to some of your questions:

The companies headquarters is in Belgium. They have a support and sales office in Florida. The U.S. head-count seems very limited and overworked. They seem to actually try hard and try to do the right thing but they work under a European Management Team that seems to be clueless about good customer service, and solid products. They do provide complete contact and location info on their website and have attended MacWorld for the last several years. In my opinion the hoops that one must go through to register or reregister the product is ridiculous. The product has been around now for quite a while, and has been somewhat improved over the years. It is cross-platform as as such the GUI tends to suffer. Unfortunately it seems to be the only scan-to-text option out there right now for OS X. The alternative is to type it in by hand or use a speech to text product, such as iListen which from an accuracy perspective is little better and sometimes worse. Recognition quality does improve a bit over time and with training but that takes a lot of additional time to initially perform as well.

The bottom line is that if you need to use a product like this it sort of works but I 'wouldn't write home about it' regarding its performance, GUI, or support. It is better than nothing when the alternative is nothing or next to nothing - i.e.retype it in or a speech to text product.   
(Version 11.6.2)

IMHO  I bought this software some years ago, after using Omnipage, that became too expensive for me to buy a new version for OSX. ReadIris turned out to be almost useless. I sent an e-mail to the developers and after some time and a new e-mail they sent me an update - that turned out te be as worthless as the version I bought. Even with a very clean text ReadIris gave as a result a text with many errors and in several font types and font measures.

Be warned!  
(Version 11.6.2)

WIZZARD1  THis is not an updater but a link to download not a demo version but four flash movies on the production.

In software update never works or crashes. They told me that this would be fixed.

Have to constantly send emails and waste my time to get updates which the program should provide.

The person at the other end of the support email is just one person with no power and no management to discuss with either as they seem to be in a different country. the support person does only what he is able or mandated to do. I have tried to escalate but it is no help as it seems to be only him.

While it is excellent software and it works for the most part, the support is neither timely or helpful especially when trying to get updates. The policy seems that even a minor revision can be chargable.

Sorry you should not have to fight for the updates and they also should not be chargable.

Does anyone actually know where the developers or main company live or a method to get ahold of them.

All I get is promises ...  
(Version 11.6.2)

DARREN GRANT  I would advise anyone to think hard before buying any software from these merchants. I purchased this software on the understanding that it was a Universal application but what was delivered was PowerPC only.

The "check for updates" feature did nothing, stating no updates. I had to contact them and ask for an update that they would not send unless I faxed them a copy of my receipt, What a way to treat customers, treat them like thieves while non paying users simply download a torrent.

Absolutely no concept of what customer service is, only interested in taking your money. Steer clear.  
(Version 11.0.3)

PRES!  It's awright...

ReadIris has done a journeyman (i.e. not spectacular) job for me except for a few issues.

First, the 50 page limit is a pain, and they send too many promotional emails. But given that...

Its ability to learn and improve seems to be poor. If I partially OCR a document and correct it as it goes, then abort it and start again, then it surely remembers the corrections I made -- basically I only have to continue my corrections from the point where I stopped. However, this learning appears to be so supremely specific to the particular OCR'ed glyphs that even if I save that dictionary and reload it after opening different pages from the same scanned PDF, it's as though ReadIris has had no training whatsoever. e.g. it again confirms with me what the numeral "3" is, and similar basic questions that I've definitely covered before.

It is apparently pathologically unsure of its recognition of punctuation. I have been asked to confirm quotation marks, dashes, periods, semicolons, colons, and parentheses more times than I can count. And even though it's correct 90% of the time, no matter how many times I say "Yup, you got that right," it still asks me 300 more times. I'd much rather correct the occasional mistake when I proofread the document after the fact, than waste my time having to go through this confirmation step endlessly.

If you load a document, OCR it (theoretically training ReadIris), then load a second document, your previous correction dictionary apparently just disappears and it starts from scratch. Of course that's not much of a loss, given my comment above, but that's a pretty nasty user experience.

I won't even mention that it just crashed on me today on the final page of an OCR job (oh wait, I just did... Never mind!)

Basically if I hadn't already bought it (over a year ago), I'd spend the $70 to upgrade my DevonThink Pro to DevonThink Pro Office to get the same (IIRC) OCR engine with a less-painful interface, by a company that actually speaks to its users.  
(Version 11.0.3)

SGHUEBNER  The download link only leads to an updater which is just plain silly if one wants to try out this. Also the links on their site doesn't seem to guide one to a real demo-version. Not the best impression, to say the least. After all, given the commens above, it's probably better not to try this piece of software... :-)  
(Version 11.0.3)