• ABBYYs Embedded OCR technology is no out of the box product, that can be tested and priced right away.

• Before ABBYY can provide you recommendations and guidelines, ABBYY has to get a general description about the project, including the planed technical specifications.

• Before we go into the details, you should check out the comparison between the different SDK Types: Mobile - Embedded - Full SDKs

• Consider to get a Trial of the "big" FineReader Engine or the Mobile OCR Engine

• Sample Images - please collect a relevant selection of sample images that should be processed. These images should cover a real life quality range.

If the standard OCR SDKs seem not be suited, please provide answers to the listed questions below.

• Have you ever realised an OCR project?

• What types of images be processed? (format, resolution)
• Where do the images come from?
• What kind of information/text should be OCRed?
• What Export formats are required? (text only, XML with coordinates, searchable PDF, other?)

• What is the business model of the solution/device that should use embedded OCR?
• What are the quantities the solution/devices should be sold?
• How big is the overall project / the share planed for OCR?

• General
  • Speed: What is needed/acceptable? - How much time is available for processing?
  • Quality: What is needed/acceptable?
  • Languages: What OCR languages have to be supported?

• Operating System
  • Linux - Windows (embedded)
  • Other?
  • None?

• Memory
  • RAM available for OCR processing
  • Available storage space
    • for distribution (ROM)
    • Binaries
    • Dictionaries
    • for temporary files

• CPUs used
  • Exact model and reference (URL) to specifications, at least the following data:
    • Architecture (little or big endian)
    • Clock frequency
    • Available operating memory

• Functionality/API

• Input images
  • Type/Compression
  • Colority
  • Resolution
  • Size, in bytes and pixels

• Image preprocessing
  • De-skewing
  • Orientation detection
  • De-speckling
  • Restoring perspective

• Recognition
  • OCR/ICR
  • Languages
  • Barcodes - what types
  • Checkmarks
  • Document structure
  • Dictionaries
    • Built-in
    • Custom

• Output
  • Character/word information
  • File formats

• What is the time line for the project?
• What technical support terms are required?
• Are there any certification requirements?
• What kind of documentation is needed?