Customer Reviews

OmniForm 5.0 [Old Version]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I really like OmniForm 5. Actually I'm using version 5.1 and I'm very satisfied with it.

I was using another forms program I had purchased that was adequate but not nearly as good. After using FormTool I have a much greater appreciation of OmniForm.

ScanSoft has been on my list of not to buy software recently because of some of the poor performance of some of their other programs, tech support is expensive from ScanSoft and none of their software that I have used have been easy to learn using the manuals or help files. In contrast OmniForm was well worth the money.

OmniForm 5 does a great job of either creating forms from scratch, scanning or converting from PDF. It's the only forms program I have tried so far that actually does a great job of importing a form from a PDF file.

Its has all the tools you need to create a form starting with a blank page. You can define any field with a variety of formats. Example you can create a date field with a specific format then no matter how the data is input the program will automatically reformat the data the way you specified. You can create just about any field simply by dragging a symbol from a menu onto the page. In the case of inserting a graphic you can choose to have the graphic saved with the form or not saving with the form itself to conserve file size. You can have the graphic resized by the program with little loss of quality. Features such as these might be available in other programs of this type but I found OmniForm to do the best job with creating a form field by field with the least effort.

Scanning in of a form is almost flawless. It even recognized fields on the paper form that were meant to be circled and created the field for them. Other programs I have used could not do this well if at all. The only adjustments I had to make on scanned forms were sometimes OmniForm recognized text as bold when it wasn't and occasionally it would change the font. For example it would change Arial to Times New Roman on some spots of the form. Strange quirk.

To get a form imported from a PDF file you have to open the PDF file and print to OmniForm. This is very accurate with little adjustment necessary after import. OmniForm really shines in this area. But I did notice if the form your importing from PDF has multiple pages OmniForm will give you an out of memory error when you try to save. To overcome this flaw you have to import one page at a time, creating a new page each time in OmniForm to make a multi page form from PDF. A little time consuming when you have a 9 page form.

It will create a self running .exe form you can e-mail and the person on the other end can fill out the form and send it back. This works even the other person does not have OmniForm on their machine. Because some people filter out .exe file attachments the program also creates a .html version of the form. This is a very handy feature.

The help file is not of much use. The paper manual is better but still lacking. If you have problems tech support from ScanSoft is expensive. But there is a user support forum you can get to through the support page on the ScanSoft web site. I have used the forum with great success.

Overall this program is a little difficult to use with some quirks and needed features like being able to import and save a multiple page form from PDF. But well worth the effort to use as it is the most accurate forms program I have used.

I do recommend this program. If the flaws I mentioned were corrected I would give this program 5 stars.

Given the established company (Scansoft) who makes it, and the fact that it's version 5.0, you'd think that this product must pretty much do everything to do with forms and repair the kitchen sink. Not so.

I'm a novice user to forms software and after only 2 days I have a list of "features wanted" that could not fit on this email. To cite a few; a very limited autofill and formatting features, very limited ability make buttons, macro scripts, and missing features such as a pop-up calendars and calculator, a workable preview mode, floating help boxes, etc.

Good points? Conversion from a MS Word form was flawless, and scanning a form was not half bad. It's easy to use (it'd better be because the documentation is almost useless), automatic generation of database but it has to be manually exported to DB programs. A 10,000 record limit to the number of records that can be stored per form is ridiculously low. You can create "e-mailable" forms to send to others to fill even if they don't have the software (but you are limited to 100 such forms unless you buy the premium edition). There is supposedly a way to post forms on the scansoft website but it hasn't yet worked for me.
Worse, Scansoft allows only ONE free techsupport event and then you have to pay for each event after. The so-called support forum has NO INPUT from Scansoft techs. All the better to force you to pay for tech support.

Unfortunately, if you need form software that is easy and somewhat mature there aren't alot of competing products out there. At several points I thought about the benefits of just staying with the MS Word form I originally created.

I bought this item to upgrade my older version of Omniform. Upon receiving the item it would not install on my new Windows Vista Computer. I called customer service and after waiting 38 minutes and being told that I was allowed only 1 free technical service call and that all subsequent calls would cost me $20.00 per call, I was told that this product would not work with Windows Vista and that it would never work with Vista that I should return the product to whomever I purchased it from. So I did, but, I had to pay a 30% restocking fee! I used to love omniform. But I will find a better alternate program. Don't support software that won't support you!

I am really thinking of returning it to Amazon. I think I will stick with good-'ol MS Word. You see I wanted a 12-page form and spent two days creating it. It's a form to survey boats so it also had graphic areas for photos (about 12). Well, all seemed fine until you printed a filled form to .pdf. The size of the created .pdf was near 10MB! (Similary done with MS word resulted in a 1.2MB finished .pdf). Well, I can't be e-mailing 10MB files!
I also recieved the book for the 5.0 filler which says it can use Dragon Naturally Speaking (I use that). I'll be darned if I can figure out where that tool is, "you must activate voice recognition in the tool bar." And, if you use Dragon Naturally Speaking in the form filler area all sentences start out without capital letters, say and select does not work. (I should note that Dragon Naturally Speaking works flawlessly in MS Word!) So, you manually have to go back and capitalize each sentence. Finally, as others have said, there is no FAQ and generally no troubleshooting help on the ScanSoft web site. This is very poor for a near $100 product. There would be no way that I would spend $700 on their premium edition.

Do not order this product if you run Vista. It will not work. Nuance should put that in large type in all the advertising so people don't purchase it and then find out it won't work!

Easy to use. Scan in a form and it becomes a fillable form, and you can print just the data on the preprinted form or print both the data and the form. This gives you a professional looking form.

The omniform forms are touted as forms that work as databases. NEVER use omnform form's built in database. Omniform forms have a ridiculously low file size limit of about 4.5MB and will crash without warning. Calculations such as subtracting time A from time B and displaying time lapsed will not work and return error messages. Not worth the price. However if the company bothers to read all the horrible crash stories,they might think of tying the form to an open source embedded database(which should work without any stupid limitations on file size etc) . The sad part is that whenever Nuance buys decent products they stop developing these products. This includes IBM ViaVoice, Scansoft Omniform. Omniform 5 is a great tool for testing user interfaces before designing database products.

I find this product very good for my purposes. I have tried Omnipage and paperport and find this much better and easier to use.

I was lucky and have a computer that still runs Windows XP-Pro so I didn't get caught in that trap,but from the very beginning it's been a pain. It might be OK if you are desperate to have just the basic functions. When I went to install It told that my security key was invalid. After several attempts it I tried to call technical support that wasn't available and never returned e-mails or phone calls. Absolutely worthless. I tried to return it to Staples where I bought it ( $100.00 ) and They wouldn't take it back because it was opened. ( they would replace it with the same title and version) From now on I will only buy trial versions and because you end up screwed. I also wish Ii had not impulsed bought and had checked reviews before I bought. limited functionality - and very poor support - I should have known with Scansoft - but I saw Nuance and thought I might be worth it. This software is worth $20.00 at the most..

Great form program if you work in EI in NYS. Scan your bill form in and just type. I makes my billing of a case load of 16 take two hours instead of days.