prismo vs finereader

By Piotr Machacz, 23 December, 2014

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all,
Since Prismo is currently on sale, I'm considering getting an OCR app for my Mac. I have some experience with fine reader from Windows with Kurzweil and their standalone app and I also played with the Mac version. Haven't heard much about Prismo but since it's quite a bit cheaper, especially now with the sale they have going, I would be interested to hear from people who used both, which one is better. I'll be mostly scanning printouts that I get from teachers at school, so nothing very difficult to recognise. Input is going to come from a scanner, but through jpg files because the scanner is in another room and my sister handles the scanning on her mac through the mac image capture app then sends me the pictures. Does prismo support scanning images? Also, can it handle other languages than English? How good are the results in comparison?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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Comments

By raaj on Thursday, January 8, 2015 - 22:28

I won't recommend these two. I'd rather recommend you to go for KNFB which is on deal for now.

By Piotr Machacz on Thursday, January 8, 2015 - 22:28

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm asking about the mac version of the programs. While I heard just how good KNFB is, it wouldn't be very practical for me, having to first get the files off the Mac, transfer them to my old iPod (afaik it doesn't support iPad yet), recognise them, and them put them back on the mac again.

By Usman on Sunday, February 8, 2015 - 22:28

I am also wondering about the effectiveness of Prismo for the mac. I will primarily be using it to OCR pdf files, and extract the text from them.

By Tree on Sunday, February 8, 2015 - 22:28

I have never used prismo, but I can say from lots of experience, that fine reader pro for the mac is great. I am a college student, in my final semester, and fine reader has everything I need for school. I would look into free trials if i was you. Fine reader should have a limited trial you can play around with at no cost, and the other app might have this as well.

By Usman on Sunday, February 8, 2015 - 22:28

Tree,
I understand what you are saying and I'm sure fine reader works quite well. However, the cost needs to be taken into account here. Although fine reader may offer all the bells and whistles, prismo is more of an affordable option for those who cannot afford fine reader. It is to this end that I ask if its somewhat comprarable to fine reader and more importantly, whether it is voiceover friendly enough to use on a daily basis.

By Ahmed on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - 22:28

Hi while I can understand where your coming from having a tight budget you are more interested in Prizmo 3 for the Mac if I were you I'd wait when both apps go on sale in the US where I live when this happens Finereaders original price of 119 dollars and 99 cents is brought down to 59 dollars and 99 cents and Prizmo 3's price is brought down from 49 dollars and 99 cents to 24 dollars and 99 cents you may want to opt for Prizmo since it's the cheaper alternative to FineReader but let me tell you why Prizmo isn't as effective as FineReader is.
I've used a trial version of Prizmo and it's not as effective as FineReader is Finereader uses it's own engine which is identical to KurzWeil 1000 plus the accuracy is way better with FineReader If I were to run a pdf document through Prizmo it would come out with the document and most of the sentences if not the content of that document as complete jibrish which would be so hard to listen to. In comparison if I were to run that same document through FineReader it will make Farr less errors than Prizmo would and plus although the developers of FineReader didn't code it to work with VoiceOVER specifically it works very very well. At the end of the day it's up to you I can't make a final decision for you and spoon-fed you which OCR app is better because their have too be taken into account several factors here. I'm sorry if I didn't provide you the exact answer you were seeking out but this is the best I can give you. My final advice to you would be install trial versions of both OCR apps and if you find that Prizmo meets your scanning needs than buy it however if you find Finereader meets your scanning needs I wouldn't buy it just yet I'd wait until it's on sale to buy it.