Author Topic: Presto page manager  (Read 13696 times)

Offline sandbox

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« on: May 18, 2007, 01:31:29 AM »
I've had older versions of this but their latest is outstanding.
It makes operating three scanners a breeze and the OCR software is something you could only dream about a few years ago!  thumbup.gif

http://www.newsoftinc.com/products/product...oductid=NAI0020
« Last Edit: May 18, 2007, 01:35:37 AM by sandbox »

Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2007, 10:51:40 AM »
I'll see what is so exciting. It can't be any worse than the older version I have! laugh.gif Thanks!

Ah! I see you're talking about the 'real' program not the pieces that were included in my Brother laser package. I'm sure you get what you pay for! smile.gif
« Last Edit: May 19, 2007, 10:56:04 AM by Xairbusdriver »
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system
CAUTION! Childhood vaccinations cause adults! :yes:

Offline sandbox

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« Reply #2 on: May 19, 2007, 10:18:34 PM »
Actually Jim the pieces are fine to start with.
I've got Epson Smart-panel and Vuescan and a few that I can't remember now but this one seems to have them all beat. The interface is Mac friendly the OCR is better than the rest, which is the same in the free offering.

Try it, I think you'll agree.  Thinking.gif

Offline sandbox

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« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2007, 01:41:13 PM »
Well Jim on further review only the OCR and the interface is remarkable, (some of) the extended functions are only for PC's.
When scanning with both epson and brother I've discovered that epson has a higher black and white contrast with Epson set to default and brothers' contrast set to its' highest level. Does your scanner seem to grayscale the black text?
« Last Edit: May 21, 2007, 06:47:08 PM by sandbox »

Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2007, 03:45:16 PM »
QUOTE
Does your scanner seem to grayscale the black text?
Not that I can tell but I have the OCR setting set to B&W. As you may be able to tell, many of the other settings are grayed out/not available, probably because of being a Mac. wallbash.gif It's not know for graphics work, ya know. rolleyes.gif

As it turns out, I'm not really using the PC ported "Presto Page Manager" after all. It is installed by the Brother disk, but it is very unintuitive and clunky. Since most of our work with the scanner is either OCR or Kodak digitizing, I just use the "Control Center" 'app' ( it's always in the menu bar or the TWAIN plugin via Elements.

I'm sure the "Deluxe" version is much better designed and certainly newer than the 'crippled', minimalist version that came with the laser. smile.gif If I remember correctly, my version of PPM created a TIFF image of the text document and then went to work interpreting it. The "Control Center" uses the same OCR engine but dumps the output into Mariner Write. The 'original' .txt document is in a tmp folder and gets trashed when the Control Center thing is quit.

For OCR work, I get satisfactory scans at 200 ppi. It still has trouble with "th" and "rn" which I might be able to eliminate by increasing the resolution. Instead, I just avoid text with those letter combinations in them! rofl.gif doh.gif This limited version serves me well enough to not even think about paying the big bucks for most OCR apps. But it's good to know that Presto is doing a good job in this area and at a very reasonable price. smile.gif
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system
CAUTION! Childhood vaccinations cause adults! :yes:

Offline sandbox

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« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2007, 12:18:18 AM »
Jim I have Presto Page Manager 7.18 that came with my Brother MFC-5460CN, nothing is Blacked Out but there are more options offered to PC's that are not offered to Macs. The Mac interface is complete and the OCR is ABBYY FineReader http://www.abbyy.com/

It has some really good features, but not all for Mac. It even has what seems to be a browser so you don't need to leave the application.

The problem I'm having is with the 24bit color option, which seems to dim the background and text. Bright white paper looks creamed, but when I switch to 8bit 256 color the contrast is corrected. This is not a Presto setting or control, it's built into the Brothers driver.

Page manager lays out like iTunes or iPhoto with a search feature a nice place to keep all your scanned files. It has improved over the last version, it's just not as complete as I had hoped.

QUOTE
Features

    *

      Share files by converting them to portable file formats like PDF (Portable Document Format) and Presto! Wrapper, a self-executable file.
    *

      Import from and export to a Lotus Notes 5.0 database. (Windows Only)
    *

      Scan and send images to your favorite programs with just a click.
    *

      Easily organize files just like Windows Explorer.
    *

      PageManager document and image viewers let you view files without opening other applications, supported file formats include:

for Windows; BMP, PCX, PCD, TIFF, TIFF (Multi-page), JPEG, PICT, PSD, WMF, PPS, PPT,  XLS, Microsoft Visio, TXT, HTML, PDF, and
for Macintosh; BMP, PCX, TIFF, JPEG, PICT, and TXT.

    *

      PageManager can preview audio or video files in Thumbnail view. Supported file formats include:

for Windows, MPEG, AVI, MIDI, MP3, WAV, and

for Macintosh, MOV, MPEG, AVI, AIFF, MIDI, MP3, and WAV.

    *

      Easily stack related image and document files¡Xeven with different file formats.
    *

      Get text out of an image with reliable and accurate OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
    *

      Full-text search.
    *

      Easy to find the backup files, and annotations, title, author, and memo information.
    *

      Add annotations without affecting the original file with handy annotation tools, such as text, stamp, highlighter, freehand line, straight line, sticky note, and bookmark.
    *

      Enhance images with a set of image tools such as crop, rotate, flip, invert color, auto-enhancement, bright and contrast, color adjustment, and remove noise.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2007, 12:22:12 AM by sandbox »

Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #6 on: May 21, 2007, 03:30:41 PM »
All I have is version 4.something. Only similarity is the apps icon! smile.gif It's similar to iTunes only in that it uses the monitor to display windows! tongue.gif As I said, I never use it, couldn't figure out what it was good for, the OCR and scanning pieces in "Control Center" do all I need. dntknw.gif While it came with the Brother 8840D, there's absolutely nothing "deluxe" about it. Come to think of it, it might even have come with the HL1440 ( I think it was ) that the MFC replaced. dntknw.gif
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system
CAUTION! Childhood vaccinations cause adults! :yes:

Offline sandbox

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« Reply #7 on: May 21, 2007, 06:41:29 PM »
File Stacking is a very useful feature Jim. I can feed 35 pages at a time into the MFC-5460 and about 25 into the MFC- 3240 and scan them, the pages are stacked 1-35 / 1-25 image1 imagie2….
I can unstack a single set or everything in the window and restack them. I can categorize each file into separate folders, stack/unstack convert to PDF.

With a click I can view the whole stack in a continuum or convert them into a multi-page PDF.

QUOTE
File Stacking
Stack associated files for one-click, simultaneous opening. Once stacked, the files will become a single, multi-page document. No need to look for your files; just click on the icon and all of them will open.


Why is this important? Paper is being converted into image files voluntarily in some cases by edict in others, and the future will be more pressing. Features like this make the whole process of conversion a breeze.

As document feeders improve along with software, years of files can be converted in just a matter of days.

QUOTE
Easily Find Documents
 
   Annotation
Add information to all digital documents. Besides audio annotation, you can also highlight interesting phrases, draw arrows to important information, add sticky notes with explanations, or add text captions to photos.
 
   Powerful Search Function
Use easy search or fuzzy search to quickly organize and find documents just by typing in a word, phrase, or annotation that appears in the document.
 
   Open Architecture
View files stored in any location, such as a hard drive, CD-ROM, storage cards, and more. Clear thumbnails are provided to allow you to quickly find documents without having to open them.

http://www.newsoftinc.com/products/product...mp;submenus=521

In addition you can add audio files, or talk into the program and it stores the mp3/wav file in a thumbnail. You can add video too!!

Our cell-phones take audio and video recordings, so we often use them to record conditions that need to be explained, the features in PM allows us a place to store it all. It also has an FTP feature and a Browser directly uploading the data to my server, so, that it can be shared with  others in a Live fashion in conference calls, for example. Each file safe on a secured server HTTPS://

Newsoft has a very good line of software, this is only one of many.
http://www.newsoftinc.com/products/product-main.asp
hi.gif
« Last Edit: May 21, 2007, 07:21:45 PM by sandbox »

Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2007, 09:38:06 PM »
Great! Sounds like it does just about every thing including 'binding the book'! smile.gif
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system
CAUTION! Childhood vaccinations cause adults! :yes:

Offline sandbox

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« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2007, 10:30:46 PM »
ah yes binding.....my bookies!
« Last Edit: May 21, 2007, 10:31:40 PM by sandbox »

MamaMoose

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« Reply #10 on: May 22, 2007, 02:39:19 AM »
Jim,

I have the multifunction Brother MFC-8860DN but I cannot get the scanner to work! The MFC connects via Ethernet. The Copy, Print, and FAX functions work. Yet, when i try to scan using the ControlCenter, I get the message: "Failed to connect to the device" no matter what choices I make.  Another problem is that sometimes when in ControlCenter, it quits especially when I try a custom scan. Using the printer's control buttons does not give me anything useful as  Scan gives me two choices; scan to e-mail or scan to FTP.

I am totally confused and Brother tech support has been no help. Perhaps, I have not set preferences correctly for the MFC..

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks,

MamaMoose


Offline Xairbusdriver

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« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2007, 08:26:41 AM »
I'll check those links, also. In the meantime, the only time I've had problems ( usually the Control Center crashes, nice error checking routines. wallbash.gif ) is when the Airport assigns the printer a new IP address. When I know this has happened, I just enter the new number in the appropriate box ( large image ) which one gets by using the "Printer" popup list in the small image. Apparently, Brother has no Bonjour device finding capabilities. Maybe the links above have that improvement.

I have no idea what the "Register your computer in the 'Scan To'" section does?! dntknw.gif
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF COUNTRIES
Those that use metric = #1 Measurement system
And the United States = The Banana system
CAUTION! Childhood vaccinations cause adults! :yes: