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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Another Poor Software Design, March 31, 2005
This review is from: PDF Converter 2 Professional (CD-ROM)
Interesting product, but just another one that has been added to the long list of software products that lack the fundamental design principles. The product's sales people try to make up for the lack of fundamental design flaws with unfounded and inaccurate claims. i.e.
1. "Turn PC files into optimized, small file-size PDF documents". I believe the person that wrote this did not have a strong understanding of the English language. I purchased the product to allow a PowerPoint slide file (file size 578K) to be emailed in a "small file-size". ScanSoft PDF Converter Professional 2.0 turned the file into a five (5) times larger file! Even with ScanSoft technical support on the phone with me for almost an hour, the smallest size was over 2000K!
2. "System Requirements...Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 or above". What I did not see listed was a requirement for a active internet connection. What a surprise to find that I actually have to be actively connected to get the activation process to work. What private information is ScanSoft collecting off my computer? I purchased a legitimate retail version from a Office Depot, a legitimate retailer. Why is ScanSoft so paranoid? What other design flaws have they included, due to their paranoia?
Here are some other interesting concerns:
3. During the installation process, there is no option to tell the software not to install in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc. What a surprise when I open up my PowerPoint to find that it takes five (5) times longer to load! Instead of 2 seconds, it now takes 10 seconds! Why did it take so long? Well, ScanSoft has now decided to load itself into every Microsoft product on my computer! It was not happy with just loading itself as a printer driver, it loaded itself on all my Office main menus and in my submenus! What else has it done without me knowing? Is it also sending my private information off somewhere? ScanSoft looks more like a SpyWare program than a PDF converter.
4. Now for the software return process...if you like to jump through hoops, try a return. I call up to return the product and I get what I think are the requirements. FAX a copy of the receipt and wait for a check. Sorry, the next day I get five (5) emails telling me five different things that I have to do from three (3) different people. Does this sound like out-sourcing? Yes!!! This explains it all to me. (I digress, this is a review of ScanSoft PDF Convertor 2.0, not of out-sourcing!)
5. Well, I think that I have jumped through all their hoops, now I will wait for a check. Does "check is in the mail" sound familiar? I wonder how long it takes a check to travel from India to the US?
6. The adventure is not over yet. Now, I have to clean up all the garbage on my hard drive and in my registry that the ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2.0 Uninstaller program left. What no Uninstaller program? I sure hope that the Windows XP Add/Remove program can work properly! But it relies on an installation list provided by ScanSoft! I am in trouble. Yes, it is time to manually edit my System Registry (Do not try this at home. This a job for a technical professional.)
7. ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2 is a great example of how not to design and implement software! Yes, it is only $99 which looks like a lot better deal than Adobe Acrobat. How many dollars have I wasted trying to get ScanSoft to do what the sales people wrote on the box? How many dollars am I going to waste trying to get ScanSoft PDF Convertor Professional 2.0 off my computer?
Here is my advice:
A. Buy software products with caution
B. Do your research (read reviews)
C. Beware of software products that have major software design flaws.
D. With poorly designed software the total cost is not what you paid the retailer for it!
E. Outsourcing is not the answer for technical support!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Terrible License Management... Lousy Service Too, April 12, 2005
This review is from: PDF Converter 2 Professional (CD-ROM)
ScanSoft has been nothing but difficult to deal with in resolving a problem that their own license management system created.
Every few weeks the application manages to forget that it is not an evaluation copy and begins dysfunctionally labeling every page it generates with that annoying "Evaluation Version" diagonally laced across every page it produces.
I paid fully for my copy of this product and naively assumed that a call to customer support would resolve this issue. It didn't. Instead, I was told that I'd have to call technical support (not an 800 number -- but not to worry, the "first call" is for no charge... oh yipee...)
Note to all customer service departments: NEVER, EVER, send a customer away with instructions to call someone else in your company instead. Make sure your customer service people can call and patch through customers on their own. The only thing more annoying to a client than having to work through a phone menu system ONCE to reach a flesh-and-blood person is having to do it TWICE with no guarantee of being closer to the solution than before.
So I called "technical services." After answering enough questions to fill an autobiography from the person who picked up the line, it was suggested that I "try" reinstalling the software (as if I had nothing better to do with my time and as if I had not been through THAT exercise enough times before). I suggested that whatever the solution to this issue was, it was definitely NOT THAT. Then the gentlemen indicated that he'd need a copy of the receipt (why did he not say so in the first place instead of suggesting I find yet more ways to waste my time?)
I suggested to him that he'd best put his supervisor on the line as he had a very angry customer on his hands. After a prolonged period of being on hold, on my own long-distance dime, I hung up.
That friends, is ScanSoft's approach to customer relations. They treat you like a questionably legitimate user by default and if their license management system screws up -- it must be (in their view) something YOU did. Nice, huh.
As for the product itself, it's okay. I noticed that it seemed to have issues with some graphics, whereas the original version with some graphics would print crisply directly out of Word, the PDF version was a bit jagged (even on the screen).
If ScanSoft had not wasted so much of my time with the license issue and completely lost my goodwill, I might have had more time to more seriously explore the product and say more.
The review below about the faulty design does echo a few things I noticed too.
Suffice to say that I doubt that I'll ever be considering ScanSoft products in the future. This experience has left a sufficiently bad taste in my mouth that I'll probably recommend my clients stay away from them too.
Glitches and shortcomings in software products is something I can learn to live with (if they aren't too bad). But contempt and indifference toward paying customers is unforgivable and inexcusable.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Activation Blues, November 2, 2004
This review is from: PDF Converter 2 Professional (CD-ROM)
PDF convertor is an acceptable product, but does not yield good formatting. As long as other means are available (OCR, select text from the PDF), I would not use it. PDF Create is excellent. I used it happily for 4 months. Now, it's dead.
I am a homebuilder,and during that time reinstalled my OS, a new hard drive, had difficulty with Scansoft's re-activation process, and finally installed a new mainboard. I exceeded the maximum number of activations (5, I think) and now have nothing. The software has never left the confines of my desktop computer.
I have a password and a username, neither of which is the PIN required, I was denied a PIN online, and the phone number offered in case of difficulty refers you back to the web page.
For those who still have a functioning copy, you need to know this. Reactivation requires that you copy a unique list of characters, possibly 24, from a screen. It contains enough zeros and Os that you may waste time copying them over and over, even though the number of characters is wrong. But, you must put your cursor in the display, and cursor over to find the *concealed* characters, and enter them too.
I have 4 Scansoft programs on my hard drive, one non-functional. There will not be any more.
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