"Text recognition where you want it, when you want it." "Copy from paper, paste to Macintosh." "Cut from paper, paste to Windows." When you read these quotes aboout an OCR scanner, you probably want to say, "Yeah, right!" I know I did, until I saw the IRISPen by I. R. I. S. (Image Recognition Integrated Systems ) America. This amazing new product is a pen-sized OCR scanner with a new and powerful text recognition technology called PCR, for Pen Character Recognition. The IRISPen is equipped with a roller that when pressed to a piece of paper turns the pen scanner on. As you slide the pen over the text, the scanned information is sent to your application from the cursor position in real time recognition. In seconds the text that you scan appears on your screen. When you lift the pen from the paper, the scanning ends. The IRISPen can directly enter printed or typed text and figures from books, magazines, newspapers, letters, forms, receipts, memos, and just about anything else. Installation is easy. The IRISPen connects to the computer's serial port (Mactintosh version) or parallel port without an interface card (Windows version). There is also a parallel card (NuBus) version available for the Macintosh. This version can be very beneficial if you have numerous "things" connected to your computer's serial ports. The IRISPen is powered by a a battery pack. Windows users can also use a keyboard power extractor and Macintosh parallel port users can get power directly from the parallel card. I. R. I. S. suggests to take the necessary steps to start the IRISPen automatically with your computer start up program. The IRISPen will then always be ready to enter information without you having to leave the application in which you are working. Okay, the IRISPen is installed. You performed a scan test using the I. R. I. S. test sheet, and the pen actually scanned the text in a recognized format into your application. Now what can you really use the IRISPen for? Well, once you become comfortable scanning with IRISPen and using the PCR software with its OCR training module, the possibilities are endless. Since the IRISPen works with any Macintosh or Windows applicaiton -- from databases to email applications -- you can use the IRISPen to make your business more efficient by entering information from invoices or bank statements into your database or spreadsheet application, or entering information from your research into your word processor or DTP application when preparing a report. The IRISPen and PCR software can be customized to fit your needs. The pen itself has a "Pen Button" that can be used to execute a keyboard command, such as Return or Space, or insert a character or character string into your document. You can also customize the alignment of the text that you want to scan. You can choose to crop the scanned text, drop the first word, drop the last word, drop both first and last words, or keep all scanned text. I was amazed at the difference these settings had on my ability to scan text correctly. It was helpful to change the alignment settings, depending on what I wanted to scan. If the text was close together, I could have the IRISPen drop off the first and last words without getting frustrated at scanning a word from a prior sentence. Another useful setting is to have the IRISPen "Ignore rejected characters in first and last position." Now, when you want to scan only a portion of text, like a name or address, you don't have to worry about starting early or stopping late. There is a Brightness Switch that adjusts the IRISPen's sensitivity to the scanned text. You can scan lighter or darker depending on the thickness of the characters or the color of the background. This makes a larger range of documents available to scan with the IRISPen. The position of this switch is very important, as I found out. When I tried to scan something with no luck and was wondering what I was doing wrong, I finally adjusted the brightness switch and was able to scan the text that I wanted. Keyboard emulation is a feature of the IRISPen that makes entering information into a database or spreadsheet much easier. You can add a keyboard command, character or character string at the beginning and/or end of the recognized text. For example, choose the keyboard command Tab as suffix and the cursor will reposition itself in the next field ready for the next scan. You can enter information into a database or spreadsheet without having to constantly reposition the cursor. Another way to customize he IRISPen to fit your needs is to use the Character Conversion feature. When you use this feature, the scanned character is replaced by another character, character string, keyboard command, or is deleted. The $ sign can be deleted from scanned price sheets or changed to the dollar character string. You can replace numeric chatacters with the printed word by replacing the 9 ysmbol with the nine character string. This may sound ridiculous to want to do, but it emphasizes the possibilities. Even though the IRISPen supports eleven languages and uses linguistic databases to aid in character recognition, you may still encounter problems with a particular font or document. By using the OCR Training feature, you can train the IRISPen to recognize special symbols or fonts. This training is stored in files called dictionaries. You can create font dictionaries to be used with specific application and/or types of documents. The IRISPen and PCR software are fairly easy to use and learn. The pen itself is comfortable to hold and is used like one would use a highlighter. The speed with which you glide the pen is a factor in how well the characters are recognized. Starting out I tried to glide the pen too fast and found that the character recognition was not as well as I had hoped. When I slowed down, the recognition was perfect. With practice I was able to speed up without loss of character recognition. The manual is well written with many illustrations to guide you in learning how to cusotmize the IRISPen and use the OCR Training to aid in character recognition. The online help is good. The Macintosh version takes advantage of System 7.5's Apple Guides. I found this very helpful. For the Macintosh version the system requires System 7.+ Macintosh computers with a 68020, 68030, 68040, or 68LC040 processor and 8MB RAM, or a PowerMac computer with 16MB RAM. The software includes a PowerMac native version. For the Windows version the system requirements are a 386 based PC with 4MB RAM -- 8MB recommended -- and Windows 3.1 or higher. I cannot really say anything negative about this product. The first few scans can be frustrating in obtaining the results that you want. However, with practice you quickly learn how to apply the right amount of pressure and find the right scanning speed. The Scan Test is a wonderful feature that lets you practice and improve your scanning skills. The PCR software is already wonderful with the many features it has, but in talking to I. R. I. S. America, I learned that they are planning a software upgrade later this year. These new features include Bar Code recognition, Block Handwriting recognition, and a Text-to-Speech feature. The Bar Code feature will recognize UPC, Codabar, EAN 13, Code 39 (or 3X9), Code 93, and interleaved 2X5 bar codes. The addition of Bar Code recognition enables the IRISPen to aid many businesses by being used in inventory control and the tracking of product sales. The Handwriting recognition feature will be helpful in scanning handwritten receipts, addresses, etc. The Text-to-speech feature, in addition to its practical uses, will be just plain fun. I can think of many uses of these new festures and eagerly await their arrival. Gateway offers this column to its readership as a service, but please note that it is not responsible for the accuracy or opinions of the author and offers no warranty either expressed or implied that the information will produce the desired result. The information provided in this article is based upon the writers particular experience with certain equipment. Familiarize yourself with the requirements of your local and state electrical code and insure yourself that the work you plan to do does not require a licensed professional. If you decide to attempt to do the work yourself, always exercise extreme caution when working on electrical systems because accidents may cause serious injury including death and damage your computer. If you experience difficulty or do not undrstand the instructions, please consult a professional in your area.

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