PEABODY, Mass., October 7, 2003 - ScanSoft, Inc. (NASDAQ: SSFT), a leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, and Freedom Scientific, the world's leading manufacturer of technology products for the blind and visually impaired, today announced that Freedom Scientific has licensed ScanSoft® RealSpeak™ text-to-speech (TTS) technologies, as well as the ScanSoft® Capture Development System, in Freedom Scientific OpenBook 7.0.

Using ScanSoft's optical character recognition and text-to-speech software, OpenBook converts printed material such as books, magazines, manuals, mail and other printed documents into electronic information that can be displayed on a computer screen and read aloud in a natural human voice. Freedom Scientific's latest version, OpenBook 7.0, takes the technology one step further, and offers individuals the ability to receive and automatically recognize and read faxes or send their text on to others through the built-in fax. Other built-in features include accessible photocopy capabilities and the ability to search for books and download online books.

"Freedom Scientific is committed to providing the best access to text available to our users," said Dusty Voorhees, senior product manager, Freedom Scientific, "The inclusion of ScanSoft's Capture Development System and text-to-speech provide our users with both quality recognition and natural-sounding speech."

OpenBook's many powerful low vision tools allow users to customize how the document appears on the screen, while other features provide portability through its capabilities of printing and embossing or even sending documents to PDAs. Features included in this edition enable users to tweak the appearance of text on the screen, including font, size, character spacing, and background/character colors, while the masking feature and highlighting help the reader focus on the text being read and follow along with the speech.

"ScanSoft's speech and OCR solutions can help bridge the divide for individuals with disabilities, and help them to become more productive and active in the work force, getting more out of daily living," said Robert Weideman, general manager, ScanSoft Productivity Applications. "Applications such as the Freedom Scientific OpenBook are particularly gratifying, and are an important part of the company's overall strategy to enhance productivity for all types of individuals in every environment."

ScanSoft's portfolio of TTS solutions converts text into human-sounding synthesized speech. The technology is used for a wide range of applications, including delivering e-mails for unified messaging systems, providing prompts for interactive voice response (IVR) applications, and speech-enabling mobile, automotive, game and PC/multi-media applications.

Designed for optimal 32-bit application development, the ScanSoft Capture Development System is everything a developer needs to quickly add sophisticated imaging, recognition and PDF capabilities to commercial and in-house software applications and is used in the leading commercial applications that support imaging and OCR, including Autodesk Raster Design, Canon imageWARE, Cardiff TELEform, FileNET Panagon Capture, Kofax Ascent Capture, Microsoft Office XP, and Microsoft SharePoint.

About Freedom Scientific

Freedom Scientific is the world's leading manufacturer of technology products for those who are blind and vision impaired, and products for the special education and learning disability markets. For more information regarding Freedom Scientific products and services, please visit www.FreedomScientific.com.

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is a leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions that are used to automate a wide range of manual processes - saving time, increasing worker productivity and improving customer service. For more information regarding ScanSoft products and technologies, please visit www.ScanSoft.com.

Trademark reference: ScanSoft and Capture Development System are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective holders.

The statements in this press release that relate to future plans, events or performance are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with market trends, competitive factors, and other risks identified in ScanSoft's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof.

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