ABBYY FineReader

FineReader's opening menu offers the most frequently used features for opening and converting documents. The Scan menu, the second in the sidebar, has a similarly clean menu for importing images from a scanner. All the app's other menus are equally lucid and efficient.

FineReader's PDF editor resembles rival products like Acrobat and FlexiPDF, but with an exceptionally lucid interface. A redaction mode lets you blank out multiple regions simply by selecting them and moving to the next.

PDFs can be exported as searchable or image-only PDF files or in many other formats, including electronic document formats not supported by Acrobat.

A simple menu makes it easy to add digital signatures from certificate authorities, complete with an image describing the signature. A signed PDF can't be modified without invalidating the signature.

FineReader's OCR proofreader has the best interface ever designed for correcting OCR errors and doubtful readings. Every task can be performed with simple keystrokes.

The OCR proofreader can send the OCR output directly to any of multiple applications, including legacy apps like WordPerfect.

Detailed options let you modify the way the app formats recognized text and displays doubtful readings.

FineReader's Screenshot Reader lets you select text or images in a web page or anything else visible on your screen and send it to the Windows clipboard or directly to other apps.

You drag the mouse to select text, a table, or image to be captured by the Screenshot Reader, and then either double-click or click the word Capture. The app then processes the captured image in the background without opening the full FineReader interface.

FineReader's document-comparison app (only in the Corporate version) can compare documents in different formats, and can perform OCR on image-only PDFs before making the comparison.