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ABBYY FineReader third party software problems with Lion?

My Epson scanner now needs drivers to suit Lion and after downloading these now works fine. However the supplied 3rd party ABBYY FineReader OCR doesn't work and after following the update links from both the Apple and Epson web-sites the only solution would seem to be to purchase a license for the new Lion compatible software. I would have thought that Epson would have offered a replacement CD that would include all the upgraded software for Lion to existing users! Has anyone been in touch with Epson and ABBYY to ask the question?

ABBYY FineReader/Epson scanner-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 13, 2011 7:16 AM

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17 replies

Aug 13, 2011 7:28 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Hi, Have already done that and they do not seem to want to take ownership of the problem and have referred me to ABBYY! I have a query in with ABBYY but no answer as yet. I think that as usual each company is hoping that the customer will get tired being bounced between them and buy the new Lion compatible software! The ABBYY software came bundled with the Epson scanner as standard and it is not the customers fault if there has been a lack of co-ordination between the companies.

Aug 13, 2011 9:54 AM in response to Allan Eckert

The version supplied bundled by Epson was ABBYY FineReader 5 Sprint Plus, which I have kept updated regularly but never felt the need to upgrade. My issue is with Epson as I think they should be giving their customers the option of having a copy of the latest Lion compatible CD, which I believe will, or should, have a licensed version of ABBYY FineReader Express on it. The latest version requires the inputting of a serial number which does not conform to the same format as the ABBYY FineReader 5 Sprint Plus serial number as bundled with the scanner CD. I believe that Epson are still selling scanners with CDs that only have PowerPC software on and so this is an issue they must address! I think we have seen that most software companies seem to have been caught unaware of the issues surrounding the OS 10.7 Lion upgrade even though they should have known about it and prepared updates in advance. I'm still having problems with my relatively new HP printer as the Utilities maintenance function won't work even after several Lion updates. So I'm very unimpressed by the efficiency of these companies which seem to operate a "knee jerk" approach to problems.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I think I'm just going to have to wait for a response from ABBYY, and may have to buy a copy of their latest software eventually or see if I can get a copy of Epsons latest CD, whichever is the cheapest!

Oct 12, 2012 3:22 PM in response to rodfrombrough

I just bought an Epson Artisan 837, and I have Mountain Lion. I shot an email off to ABBYY tech support and was sent an FTP link to download a Mountain Lion compatible version of FineReader Sprint 8.0. It does work, but does not recognize my Epson. It is connected wirelessly, and some of Epson's software will not work with their devices if they are wirelessly connected to Macs running Mountain Lion -- and that may be my problem. However, I can scan a document with Preview, save as a PDF, and FineReader will open and OCR that file -- does a good job too.

Apr 25, 2013 6:21 PM in response to Steve Macaulay

Can you tell me what link ABBY sent you to download the FineReader Sprint 8.0 that works with Mountain Lion? Their tech support told me i should go to Epson to get its Download Navigator to acquire FineReader. But the Navigator comes up wiht nothing. They don't appear to want to send the link.


My new scanner CD is not compatible with 10.8, freezes during installation,and Epson support won't help. Epson's web-site has the scanner utility but not the bundeled software.


Thanks.

Apr 26, 2013 12:49 AM in response to rodfrombrough

Epson, HP and other brands often include software like ABBYY FineReader along with the device drivers as a courtesy.

They are not obliged to give away new version of a specific product as soon as it is available.

In my opinion they should concentrate to make the best possible driver for their products, leaving apart third party software, that usually are only useful to hog the end user's computer.

Apr 26, 2013 6:09 AM in response to rodfrombrough

Reply to Ravasio: But Epson is obliged to provide a product compatible with the most recent Apple products if they claim to support Macs. This scanner came with bundled software that does not work with the recent OS and new Macs that come with it. If they don't provide the software that works on the latest Macs, they should indicate this or provide links to the bundled software that works.

Apr 26, 2013 8:41 AM in response to rodfrombrough

The problem I faced, as others seem to have on this thread, is how to get the Mountain Lion compatible version of ABBYY. Pasted below is the email response I received last October with the FTP link. The problem was not with Epson (although I wish too that they had included the ML compatible software on the CD), but with ABBYY. I got this solution by interacting via email with ABBYY technical support staff. Frustrating to all of us that we have to go to this length to get software that works.


As to using the ABBYY software, it will not recognize a wireless-connected printer. My workflow, as described above, is to scan and PDF a document (I now use Vuescan for that rather than Preview, but either works just fine), then run through ABBYY for OCR. Gotta tell you that the OCR works perfectly! The ABBYY software is also capable of doing OCR in a variety of languages -- I do both English and Spanish, and it picks up all the special Spanish characters without any problems. Yes, I know that Vuescan can also do OCR, but ABBYY works far better.


So here is the post from ABBYY (I deleted contact info from the person who sent it to me since it had the usual "confidential, do not post" stuff):


Please do the following:

1. Remove ABBYY FineReader Express Edition.

2. Download the latest release of ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Sprint (compatible with OS X 10.8) from the following ftp-link: ftp://Sprint8Mac:Wnb87-=ep@ftp.abbyy.comWnb87-=ep@ftp.abbyy.com

To download please do as below:

- Go to ‘Go > Connect to Server…’ in Finder,

- Copy the link, paste it in and click OK.

- Finder will open a folder containing the distributive.

- Save the file to your hard drive.

3. Install the program from downloaded distributive.


Have a question? Try consulting the Knowledge Base on our website or send your question to our Technical support staff.


That's it -- good luck to all.


Steve

ABBYY FineReader third party software problems with Lion?

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