EasyConverter 5.05

EasyConverter v5.05 provides essential functionality to help you make information accessible to everyone. New to version 5.05 are a host of improvements to ensure you are in complete control of your alternative format conversions.

Improvements to version 5.05 include an updated OCR scanning engine, essential functionality to specify the page numbers in your alternative formats, and a variety of general improvements to the quality of EasyConverter's Large Print, MP3, DAISY talking book, and Braille outputs.

Improvements to OCR scanning

More control over page numbering

Option to use "original" page numbers from Kesi, PDF and scanned documents

New in version 5.05, EasyConverter provides the option to set one Kesi, PDF or scanned page as one page in your large print, DAISY talking book and Braille outputs.

Selecting the "use original page numbers" option in the EasyConverter settings means that your converted documents will contain exactly the same page numbers as your original document. So if you scan 50 pages from a book, you will have 50 page numbers in your output, and your students can skip to the page they need quickly and easily.

To use original page numbers, simply select "Original page numbers" in the EasyConverter settings dialog.

New "set page" numbers of PDF and scanned documents

With EasyConverter v5.05, you can now edit the page numbers of PDF and scanned documents. 
In practice, EasyConverter customers often want to convert parts of a document. For example, some customers prefer to convert a single chapter of a textbook rather than converting the whole book at once. However, if you want to scan chapter 3 from a book, the first page number of chapter 3 could be page 30, or page 40, or 50 etc.

Using the all new "Set pages" functionality, you can mark a specific page as a specific number. If the first page in your document is page 30, then you can set it to page 30, and the rest of your pages will be updated accordingly.

EasyConverter's "Set page" functionality is only available for PDF and scanned documents. Customers can apply "set page" changes whilst using EasyConverter's OCR Editor.

New update to OmniPage 16.5 for more accurate scanning

EasyConverter v5.05 now uses the updated Nuance Omnipage 16.5, ensuring that EasyConverter can accurately recognise your scanned and PDF document.

Improvements to document input

Import a page range from PDF documents

EasyConverter v5.05 now includes the option to import as many, or as few pages from a PDF document as required.

In version 5.05, as part of the New Project wizard, you can specify the page range you want like to convert. For example, if you have a 20 page PDF document, but only want to import pages 1, 3 - 7, and 10, you can simply enter "1, 3-7,10" into the "page range" edit area.

Improvements to output quality

Large Print page number fixes

A series of improvements have been made to the way that page numbers are presented in large print outputs. Customers had reported that sometimes the page numbers were in the wrong place, or sometimes even missing altogether. Improvements have been made to v5.05 to ensure that page numbers are presented consistently in large print outputs.

Page divider line added for US and UK Braille

The quality of EasyConverter's Braille output has been enhanced with all new UK and US Braille styles. These new styles add page divider lines to show where each original page begins and ends. 
Options to use "UK standard + show page divider lines" and "USA standard + show page divider lines" are included in EasyConverter's Braille style settings.

Braille Hyphenation

When creating Braille versions of text, words often take up a lot of space on a line when embossed into Braille. This often means that words have to be split up over two lines, instead of being fit onto a single line. Because previously, there has been no regulation of how these breaks are added within words, they have sometimes left Braille readers confused as to where one word starts, and another starts.

New in EasyConverter v5.05 is an "automatic hyphenation" option. EasyConverter's automatic hyphenation automatically adds hyphenation in a sensible place in a word, or alternatively, moves the whole word onto the next line.
To apply the automatic hyphenation, simply check the "automatic hyphenation" checkbox in the Braille General settings.

DAISY & MP3 ID3 v2 tagging

EasyConverter automatically adds ID3 tags to MP3 and DAISY talking book files. These tags contain, amongst other things, information about the name of the file. This information is essential to allow readers to read the content using their favourite MP3 and DAISY players.
EasyConverter v5.05 has now updated from v1 to v2 of ID3 tagging. The main advantage of v2 is that information is added to the files regarding the running order of the MP3 tracks. So if you use EasyConverter to create audio files, you can be sure that your readers can open the tracks in their favourite players, and play them in the correct order.