I’m considering upgrading to DTPOffice from DTP, so am trying it out. Email import is as sweet as could be, but scanning in files via OCR is a nightmare. First, and less importantly, DTPO won’t work directly with my Brother scanner, whether via Image Capture (though this normally works perfectly well) nor TWAIN. I understand from Bill there is a problem with various Brother models, and it is certainly possible to work round by using Brother’s own Control Center app. However, this doesn’t allow multi-page scans (or using the scanner’s document feeder). The only alternative for multipage docs, then, is to scan separately, then import into DTPO.
This is where the trouble really starts. It is fantastically slow. Reading a six-page PDF, scanned at 300 dpi, into DTPO via OCR takes ten and a half minutes! I kid you not - I have timed it twice, watch in hand. This brings the working day to a grinding halt.
What could be the problem here? The docs I’ve tried so far are standard bank statements, nothing psychedelic, hardly a graphic in sight. My system may be a bit long-in-the-tooth: it’s a non-Intel 1.8 GHz G5 PowerPC with 1.5 GB of memory and running OS 10.5.5. But surely this isn’t decrepit enough to cause such a slowdown.
I should add that single sheets scanned with Control Center are OCRed in a few seconds.
This seriously makes me wonder whether the upgrade is worth the seventy bucks. After all PDFs are searchable in DTP without the OCR hassle and emails can be imported by AppleScript, even if in nothing like the style of DTPO.
(Incidentally, it’s frustrating to a longtime fan of all things DEVON to find that DTPO‘s scan feature is so clunky, never mind the OCR problem, when the notoriously buggy and infuriating SOHONotes does this from my Brother as smooth as silk just by clicking a single icon. It makes multi-page, searchable PDFs via Image Capture, and does so in the blink of an eye… I refuse to believe that DEVON can’t match Chronos, may heaven shine upon them, at something like this.)