PEN BUTTONS

Your pen scanner is equipped with two buttons. The simple and double of each pen button can be programmed so as to execute an operation in the target application. By simply pressing the pen buttons, you will thus be able to execute keyboard commands, add characters, switch from a scan type to another, etc. without having to touch your keyboard.

Tip:

The buttons' programming is particularly useful, for example, when entering data into a database: you can program the <Tab> command to get to the next field and program the <Home><Cursor Down> to move the cursor to the next row. When entering amounts in a spreadsheet, you can program the keying of the currency ("$", etc.). In your word processor, you will program the <Enter> key to make a carriage return and start a new paragraph, etc. These are only a few examples...

To program the pen buttons:

•  In the Application window, click Pen Buttons on the toolbar or select the command Pen Buttons from the Settings menu. The Pen Buttons window opens with a default programming.

•  Modify the default programming by selecting the required radio buttons on the left- and on the right-hand side. The left radio buttons refer to the left button, the right radio buttons refer to the right button.

Possible operations

Null: This corresponds to a "null" operation. In other words, a single click will not trigger off any action.

This option is usually used to deactivate a programmed operation.

Custom...: This allows you to program your own custom operations, i.e.: any other keyboard command - including a combination of commands -, or the addition of characters, character strings, or even the combination of several operations. To enter the custom operation, select the required radio button, then enter your keyboard commands or characters in the proposed field and click OK to confirm.

Switch scan type: This allows you to program the switch to the next scan type in the list of scan types available (see: Basic settings, Reading options, Scan type).

If the current scan type is Text, this will make you switch to Numeric. If the current scan type is Numeric, this will make you switch to the Black-and-White image. (Remember that the reading mode is always specified in the Status window).

Enable dot matrix mode: This is used to enable the dot matrix reading mode.

Undo last scan: This is used to remove the last scan that was inserted in the target application.

•  Click OK to confirm and close the window.

DELIMITERS

With the delimiters, you can indicate how the scanned lines must be delimited for the reading. Where should the reading actually start if a word has been cropped during scanning? How should hyphens be interpreted when occurring at the end of a line? Should keyboard commands or characters be added before and/or after the read line?

To set the reading delimiters:

•  In the Application window, click Delimiters on the toolbar or select Delimiters from the Settings menu. The window opens with an Input and an Output tab.

•  In the Input tab, indicate how the scanned area must be isolated and what the recognized text (output) should be. Delimit the text line according to the given example: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".

- keep all scanned characters

- keep all characters before the last space

- keep all characters after the first space

- keep all characters between the first and the last space

Ignore rejected characters in first and last position:

It may be that characters positioned at the beginning or at the end of a line are not properly scanned/read. This may happen if the wordspacing is too small or if you scan text from columns, like

in magazines, for example, and that you start scanning slightly on the previous word/column and end scanning on the next one. Those "bad" characters will automatically be rejected by the software and represented by the "~" symbol in the Scan Test window.

The best to do if you encounter such a situation is to make the software ignore the first and last position characters for the output, otherwise you will have to delete them manually once inserted in the active application.

•  In the Output tab, select the options according to your needs:

Restore paragraph:

You must indicate how to interpret hyphens occurring at the end of a line. If you scan the lines "The new presi-" and "dent waved from the balcony", the hyphen must obviously be dropped so as to recompose the word "president" in the output: "The new president waved from the balcony".

Select this option in order to delete all the end hyphens occurring in your text.

Note: If hyphens are deleted, the ending codes (see below) will automatically be deleted so that the words can be properly recomposed.

Add starting code:

You can have the IRISPen execute operations automatically in the target application before the output result is being inserted. You can for example have the software operate a carriage return before it inserts any read line. A series of possible codes are proposed by default, but you can also introduce your own starting code.

To insert a starting code, select a code from the drop-down list or select Custom to introduce our own code, then click OK to confirm. With the Custom code, you can add any combination of keyboard commands and/or characters. The default starting code is: <None>.

Add ending code:

You can have the IRISPen execute operations automatically in the target application after the output result is being inserted. If you insert data into a database, you can for example define a tabulation as ending code to automatically position your cursor in the next field. A series of possible codes are proposed by default, but you can also introduce your own ending code.

To insert an ending code, select a code from the drop-down list or select Custom to introduce your own code, then click OK to confirm. You can add any combination of keyboard commands and/or characters.

The default ending code is: <Space>.

•  Click OK to confirm and close the window.

CHARACTER SUBSET

The subset of characters used by the IRISPen to read data is set according to the Scan type and the Language chosen for the reading. As you can imagine, the subset of characters used for reading numeric data differs from the one used for reading text: the first one mainly contains figures while the second one also contains letters. Similarly, the subset used for reading English differs from the one used for reading French (think of the "é", "è", "û", etc. that do not exist in English), etc.

By using a specific subset of characters, the software eliminates the chances of recognition errors. For example, if you select the reading mode Numeric, you limit the set of recognized characters to numeric symbols only. By doing so, no confusion can possibly be made between "5" and "S", ""9" and "g", "8" and "B", etc. as the software automatically interprets the characters as figures.

You can also by yourself go one step further and customize any of the proposed subsets of characters. You can create a character subset that exclusively contains those symbols you want to recognize. As an example, if you want to read amounts given in dollars exclusively, select the reading mode Numeric, then limit the character set to figures, punctuation and the "$" sign, and eliminate all other unnecessary symbols.

To customize a character subset:

•  In the Application window, first select a type of data to be read (Scan Type field) and/or the language in which the data is to be read (Language field). The subset of characters proposed for reading such data will be automatically activated.

•  Click the button Character Subset on the toolbar or select the command Character Subset from the Settings menu. In the Character subset window, all the characters proposed for the selected data type are enabled. All the other characters are disabled and grayed out.

! Warning

Handprinting: To customize the character subset for handprinting, you must choose the User-defined subset option in the Handprinting window then define your own subset. See how to adjust the handprinting reading in: Frequent commands, Handprinting.

•  To add or remove character(s) from the subset, simply click on the corresponding button(s). You can also select or deselect groups of characters using the buttons on the right-hand side: Deselect/Select A-Z, Deselect/Select a-z, Deselect/Select 0-9, Deselect/Select All.

•  Click OK to confirm and close the window.

BARCODES

The IRISPen allows you to fine-tune the barcode reading: you can limit the reading to specific barcodes, make the software verify/strip checksums, authorize partial read, or read out-of-specs barcodes.

To fine-tune the barcode reading:

•  In the Application window, click Barcodes on the toolbar, or select Barcodes from the Settings menu. In the Barcodes window, enable or disable the available options.

Barcode types

By default, the application is set to automatically detect and read any of the barcodes supported by the IRISPen (see: Learn how to... Read barcodes). All barcode types are thus selected by default. You can however limit the recognition to specific barcode types. This will help avoid any possible errors when reading a certain type of barcode.

To limit the reading to certain barcodes, (de)select the corresponding buttons in the proposed list.

Verify checksum

This feature allows you to make the software automatically verify the barcode check character(s) when reading certain types of barcodes. To enable this verification, simply select the button Verify checksum in front of the barcode(s) concerned.

Strip checksum

Should you wish to, you can also have the barcode's cheksum stripped out from the recognition result. To exclude the checksum from the recognized barcode(s), simply select Strip checksum in front of the barcode(s) concerned.

Barcode quality

If you notice that the quality of the barcodes to be read is rather poor, you should make some adjustments manually. The software will use additional intelligent routines to try and read the barcode. To indicate that the quality is poor, slide the quality indicator to the left. If necessary, make several tests using the Scan test window (see: Starting up, The Scan Test window).

Allow out-of-specs barcodes

It may happen that some barcodes have been generated without respecting the barcodes specifications. The IRISPen can be tuned to try and read such barcodes. Simply tick this option if you suspect the barcodes are "out-of-specs".

Partial read

It may be that only part of a barcode can be scanned. This may be the case if the end of the barcode is unavailable or of insufficient quality, etc. If you desire it, the partial scan can render a partial read, rather than no read at all: tick Partial read and indicate the limit under which the reading will not be accepted (in number of characters). If the number of read characters is below the limit, no result will be given. If it is superior to the limit, only the required characters will be recognized.

Default

The Default button is used to restore the default settings in this window.

•  Click OK to confirm the settings and close the window.

Tip:

Activating the Barcode scan type

Once you have saved the Barcodes window settings by clicking on OK, the scan type Barcode gets automatically activated in the Application window. In other words, you can skip the Scan type selection and directly introduce the settings for the barcode reading.

HANDPRINTING

Before you start scanning handprinting with your IRISPen, the best is to let the software know with precision what type of characters is going to be read: numeric, alphabetic, spaced or contiguous, etc. This will help the IRISPen work better and quicker. Refer to Learn how to... Read handprinting to know exactly what can be read by the pen.

If needed, you can also make the software remove spaces, decide on the level of rejected characters to be accepted.

To adjust the handprinting settings:

•  In the Application window, click Handprinting  on the toolbar, or select Handprinting from the Settings menu. In the Handprinting window, modify the options as needed.

Tip:

Opening the Handprinting window automatically enables the scan type Handprinting. If you want to activate this scan type and adjust the handprinting settings, a click on the Handprinting button suffices.

Character segmentation

It is important to tell the software if the characters are well spaced or contiguous. If you try to read contiguous handprinting with the segmentation set to "spaced", some characters may be skipped in the recognition.

Contiguous handprinting: Select this option if the space between characters is reduced. In this case, some characters may occasionally touch each other and the zones covered by a single character may overlap.

Spaced handprinting: Select this option if there is a clear space between the characters.

Character subset

It is important to specify the subset of characters to be used by the software as this eliminates the chances of recognition errors. For example, if you select the reading mode Numeric, you limit the set of recognized characters to numeric symbols only. By doing so, no confusion can possibly made "5" and "S", ""9" and "g", "8" and "B", etc. as the software automatically interprets the characters as figures. Set the subset of characters according to the type of characters to be read:

Numeric: to read numbers, as well as the dot, comma and hyphen symbols.

Alphanumeric: to read numbers and capital letters, as well as the dot, comma and hyphen symbols.

Alphabetic: to read capital letters only.

User-defined subset: to read a specific set of characters. Click on Subset and define your own subset by selecting/deselecting the required characters or groups of characters: Select/Deselect A-Z, Select/Deselect 0-9, Select/Deselect All.

Remove spaces: this option makes the software remove spaces between characters in the recognition result. It is selected by default if you choose to read numeric data. If you intend to read whole phrases or sentences (of alphabetic or alphanumeric characters), you should not remove the spaces. The software will in this case detect the spaces between the words and reproduce them in the read sentence.

Rejection level

If you read numeric data, you can have an influence over the rate of rejected characters appearing in the recognition result. If the rejection threshold is increased, characters will be rejected quicker if the software is unsure. There will thus be less possible errors but more rejected characters in the result. If the rejection threshold is decreased, there will be less rejected characters in the result, but the level of possible errors will be higher. For applications where extreme accuracy is essential, you should thus set a high rejection level.

To adjust the rejection level, you must simply drag the slider bar to the left or to the right.

Tip:

Unrecognized characters/symbols are by default represented by a tilde (the "~" symbol) in the recognition result, but you can define another symbol that best fits your needs. See: Learn how to... Define the symbol for unknown characters.

•  Click OK to confirm the settings and close the window.

SPEECH SYNTHESIS

Thanks to the speech synthesis, you can make the IRISPen speak out the recognized data for you. Just scan some data and the computer reads it out for you!

The speech synthesis feature is available in the language that was chosen at the installation for speech synthesis*.

(*) Remember that you can possibly change the language supported by deinstalling then reinstlaling the IRISPen. The following languages are available: Brasilian, British English, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian.

Practically, you will no longer need to look up to the screen to verify your recognition results. Think how useful this will be when encoding new data, entering data into your bookkeeping, etc. The IRISPen will also be a valued tool when learning a foreign language: the computer will pronounce all new words for you, etc.

At any moment in time, you can also have the software repeat the pronounced lines. The IRISPen will always repeat the last utterance.

Speech synthesis applies to all legible data

Speech synthesis not only applies to text but to all legible data such as handprinting, numeric data, and barcodes. You can thus activate the speech to get an auditive feedback of any type of data.

To activate the speech synthesis:

•  In the Application window, select the language that was chosen at the installation for speech synthesis.

•  If you intend to read whole sentences, do not forget to select the scanning mode Multiple lines. This will ensure a natural prosody, a good intonation, and the insertion of pauses.

•  Press the Speech button  on the toolbar or select Speech from the Options menu. As soon as data is being scanned, it is spoken out by your computer.

If the beep sound was enabled, it is automatically disabled and replaced by the speech.

To repeat the speech:

Right-click the button Speech on the toolbar or select the command Repeat Speech under the Options menu. The IRISPen will directly repeat the last pronounced utterance for you.

Remember that you can always program a hotkey to repeat the speech - See: Learn how to... Program hotkeys.

Tip:

Do not enable the speech feature unless you really intend to use it. The recognition actually slows down as you wait for the recognized data to be read aloud.