This project sounded promising but it is important to remember that source files that have less than 300 dpi are likely to be unsuccessful in most OCR packages
Works with TWAIN scanners and WIA scanners, will play nicely all the way to Win 7 64.
It claims to handle smudged kanji and underlined words, and has a learning mode. Plus, it has a bunch of built-in dictionaries to help with recognition. It claims to be able to handle both kana, kanji, and alphanumeric text on the same page as well, something that ReadIris choked on frequently when I used it.
If it does what it claims to, then it would be a heck of a lot better than anything IRIS puts out, for a lot cheaper. ~13,000 yen for the full download version. 20,000 yen if you want a box. Interface is all Japanese.
The other software I'm looking at is e.Typist (Windows only, supports Mac via Boot Camp... I think. It's vague about Mac support.) :
Looks pretty similar to 読んde!!ココ, feature-wise, with a few notable exceptions. First, you can buy the Neo edition which only does EN and JP for 9800 yen (download), or the standard edition which does a bunch of languages for ~13000 yen (download). If you buy at a store, expect to pay 13,000/20,000 yen. Discounts for downloading are nice here, just like 読んde!!ココ. The Neo feature is nice if you don't care about other languages.
Otherwise, it seems to do just about everything that 読んde!!ココ does, with a few exceptions. First, it has a "preview mode" where it superimposes what it thinks it sees over the text it scans, so you can correct it. Also, it doesn't say whether it supports WIA scanners. It's vague about that. It says it supports Win 7 64, but it's kind of sketchy about which scanners it supports. I guess I'll try the eval version first to see if it likes my Brother MFC 7840.
Both handle image files, PDFs, scans, photos, and various input devices, and will output to txt, rtf, excel, word, etc., with some variations between the two. Check the websites to see if your flavors are supported.
Both have large dictionaries, and it looks like both support learning modes for Japanese, which ReadIris does not.
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