DR DIGBY L. JAMES  This product should now be avoided like the plague.

Omnipage used to be state of the art. But the Mac version, having changed hands several times, has been left in limbo, and has not been updated for nearly 10 years. It runs under OSX X Leopard, even on an Intel Mac. But you can't use the scanning function which requires Classic (not available on an Intel Mac). And if you have a new scanner it's probably not in the scanner list.

Also, if you are upgrading there's another gotcha. It may not open your old files. To get round this, make sure your files have .opd as the file extension. Then open then in a hex editor and examine the resource fork. In all probability there isn't one. And that's why Omnipage won't open them. Create a new Omnipage file (import a single image - even a photograph) and save it. Open in the hex editor. Switch to the resource fork. Copy resource fork and then switch to the problem file. Paste into the resource fork and save. The file should now open (from the menu, not by double-clicking). You can then export the scanned images and use a more modern OCR package. I use, very successfully, ReadIris. Buy that instead.

If you MUST buy Omnipage have a hunt. I found a site (which I now can't find, of course) of a company that had taken it over and was selling at under £100 (~$150).  
(Version 11.0)

COWICIDE  Deceptive. They call it X and make it appear that you'd actually want to run this thing in this decade, but you have to run it in CLASSIC which isn't even available anymore on Mac? Please, either upgrade this app for Leopard 10.5.x or just quit trying to rip off Apple users and mothball this thing entirely.  
(Version 11.0)

PABLOT  Try installing under Classic, on Applications folder (the OS X folder, not the Classic Apps folder). Then, open in OS X, ideally open the OmniPage Pro X app inside the components folder. :)  
(Version 11.0)

ROLAND   Tried to install under OSX.4.3 ... no luck. Tried to find any indication of how to fix the problem. Non on the website to be found. Technical Support only against a charge!? How can anybody market a product which does not install without any warning. I found some report on a work aroud for OSX.2, but I have no longer this old OS.

Be warned there is a problem!  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  What are they talking about? It works like a charm.  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  Talk about ignoring the user base, this program won't even install natively on MacOS X at least since Panther. The program is good IF you can install it and use your newer scanner to make TIFF files this creaking program can still read, but breaks little by little due to lack of scanner support.

The developer should be ashamed of letting this wonderful program waste away and die. If anybody is even thinking of buying it, they should NOT do so until the developer updates it and should write lots of letters to them as well.  
(Version 11.0)

STEVE  Horrible, horrible program.

It didn't find my scanner (canoscan lide 50). It had no way of trying to find my scanner.

There has been no update for this product for a long, long time.  
(Version 11.0)

SAL  Hey, 500 bucks and it won't even install right? And you cannot even download a demo? Who the hell is stoopid enough to buy this?

Just my 2 lousy kopeks  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  As an alternative to installing from OS 9, you can install as root and then meticulously and painfully change ownership and permissions. Works but is a pain in the a** - at least if installed at the volume/applications level. I didn't try to install at the user/applications level.  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  Getting this program to install is painful. You have to install it on OS9 and then copy it over to OSX. If you have a newer machine without OS9 booting, you are SOL.

Once you do get it working, it is a really nice application.  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  Until this product is finally updated completely to use OS X, not relying on Classic versions of plug-ins, it is really incomplete and the manufacturer seems to make no noises about making a true OS X version. Many of us don't even have OS 9 installed and don't want to do it just to use OCR software. This was once the Cadillac of OCR products on the Mac, now it seems more like an Edsel.  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  I just installed a latest version on my G5 (dual 1.8) with an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo scanner. I worked flawlessly when I scanned a letter printed on a laser printer. So, this is one success story with one particular scanner.

But, the previous reviews posted here is precious. I encourage others to read it.  
(Version 11.0)

ANONYMOUS  I installed OmniPage Pro X 10 upgrade for Macintosh on a new G4 PowerBook running OS 10.3 Panther. The installation went smoothly. I have used OmniPage Pro 8.01 for Macintosh for years, and found that it generally did a good job. I expected the new version to be at least as good, but I found some problems with OmniPage Pro X 10.

ScanSoft claims that OmniPage Pro X works with all TWAIN compliant devices, and allows direct scanning into OmniPage, but it wouldn't do this from my Brother scanner. I have to use one of their “workarounds” by scanning pages into Apple's Image Capture (comes free with Mac OS X, and saves page scans as TIFF files), then load these images into OmniPage.

I find that both loading the TIFF file page scans, and scanning the text is much slower for OmniPage Pro X than for OmniPage Pro 8 - to the point of being annoying. ScanSoft claims that Pro X has much improved OCR accuracy, but my experience has been that if it is more accurate it is only moderately so. It still can't properly interpret font sizes, heading and indent formats.

A few other things were particularly annoying:

- Pro X throws up a dialog box requesting you to set Zoning Instructions for every page scan! When you are scanning dozens of pages this is a real time waster. Pro 8 never had this, and, given that my Zoning Instructions are always the same, it should be able to be turned off with a Preferences setting.

- Pro X does not automatically expand the Text View window to allow you to see all of the scanned text after it has been recognized like Pro 8 did. You must drag the window border, or slide window buttons back and forth, every time you want to look at what you just scanned. And there is this odd glitch that doesn't show the border being moved as you drag it - you must release the mouse button then the border shows where you just dragged it to.

- Command - + does not allow you to increase the scanned text size in the Text View window (so that you can read it) like Pro 8 did.

- ScanSoft free support allows only one call for one issue, then they cut you off and demand $20 for any other issue support thereafter - a bad policy for a company trying to market a complicated and awkward piece of software.

I have stopped using OmniPage Pro X 10. The solution I have settled on is to scan pages with Apple's Image Capture, and do OCR with OmniPage Pro 8.01 running under the OS X Classic environment. I just finished a long document, and this arrangement worked fine. OmniPage 8 has reasonably good character recognition accuracy.  
(Version 11.0)