Openbook Versus Kurzweil 1000

Category: accessible Devices

Post 1 by Harmony (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 11:40:52

I bought a scanner over the weekend and downloaded a demonstration of Openbook scanning software from the Freedomscientific website and I'm getting the full version of Kurzweil 1000 tonight. What do people like better, Openbook, or Kurzweil?

Post 2 by Darrell Shandrow (Generic Zoner) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 12:57:19

I like Kurzweil better, especially since OpenBook has been dead for years until the recent release of 8.0. After looking at the feature list for 8.0, I'm not currently inclined to shell out the dough for it. I have K1000 version 11 and I'm sticking with it for the time being.

Post 3 by Miss Prism (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 14:28:38

I have Openbook v7, and am happy with it, though I've never tried Kurzweil. I like to keep things simple, and as I've heard that Kurzweil has more features, this doesn't appeal to me--that's just more to learn, and it seems unnecessary when I get excellent scans already.

Post 4 by Harmony (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 16:11:18

I've just had Kurzweil 1000 installed on my laptop but haven't had chance to play around with it yet.

Post 5 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 19:25:25

I like Kurzweil. I found the recognition better in earlier versions than open book, and the manual is much, much better and extremely thorough. Open book yields faster results, but again, the accuracy of Kurzweil was superior in my opinion. There upgrade policy is much less costly, too.

Lou

Post 6 by battle star queen (I just keep on posting!) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 20:42:22

Agree with post three. I have open book version 7 and it's ok. But seriousluy can't they get some better speech on the thing?

Post 7 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 21:01:00

If you have the Realspeak voices, I think they'll run on it, but I'm not sure.

Lou voices

Post 8 by Reyami (I've broken five thousand! any more awards going?) on Tuesday, 04-Mar-2008 21:54:45

I've never used open book. I have Kurzweil 1000 on this desktop computer and am happy with the voices it came with. like VW Kate, but am wondering if there are more voices similar to her and VW paul out there.

Post 9 by Harmony (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2008 8:18:27

I've tried Kurzweil 1000 now and it seems quite good.

Post 10 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2008 12:54:22

Actually Joanne, you can use realspeak voices. They shipped them with JAWS 8, so if you need some help getting Kurzweil to work with them, let me know. It isn't a hard thing to do, but I just don't want to take up board space with it here.

Lou

Post 11 by WillieTheWoof (I'll have the last word, thank you!) on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2008 21:10:49

Hmmm, Woof wonders to himself: If I say text cloner pro will they all hit me? Slinking back in to his corner. Okay! it's cheep, and works well. but, kurzweil definately over open book for many of the reasons stated. upgrades are excellent, tech support is excellent and recognition is superior.

Post 12 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 05-Mar-2008 21:58:28

Ok John Why do you like text cloner compared to the other products? I know it is considerably cheaper, which makes it atractive, but why else?

Post 13 by Miss Prism (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Thursday, 06-Mar-2008 1:57:30

Ooh, Text Cloner! I'd forgotten about it, thanks for the reminder. I played with it once, and would like to try it again. I lost/forgot it when I had to get a new computer...

Post 14 by battle star queen (I just keep on posting!) on Thursday, 06-Mar-2008 10:08:40

what is text cloner?

Post 15 by RedSoxFan (Generic Zoner) on Tuesday, 29-Apr-2008 3:27:41

At my work we have forms that I scanned into my computer using Kurzweil however, it did not scan the check boxes. Does anyone know how to make check boxes using ms word? and edit boxes too?
it would be most appriciated if someone could message me with the info.
redsoxfan

Post 16 by Harmony (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Friday, 09-May-2008 4:16:45

I've been using kurzweil 1000, but I've got windows vista now and apparently kurzweil won't be compatible until they bring out version 12. Is that true and what can I use instead?

Post 17 by motifated (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Friday, 09-May-2008 8:18:30

I'd heard there weren't any problems. If there are, You might look into System Access Mobile. This would also solve screenreader problems. I understand that System Access also provides OCR capabalities, or at least it used to.

Lou

Post 18 by Harmony (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 17-May-2008 2:51:58

I've managed to install Kurzweil on here now and it works fine.