ScanSoft PaperPort and OmniPage Enable Professional Document Capture at the Desktop with new Xerox DocuMate 252 Duplex Scanner

Complete Solution Delivers Industry-leading OCR, Complete Support for Creating and Converting PDF, Intuitive Document Management and All-in-One Search

Peabody, Mass., March 9, 2004 - ScanSoft, a leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, today announced ScanSoft PaperPort and OmniPage have been selected as the professional document capture desktop solution for the new Xerox DocuMate™ 252 Duplex Scanner. The integrated solution provides all of the capabilities needed to capture, convert and process documents from any desktop in the organization.

The Xerox DocuMate 252 Duplex Scanner provides unrivaled scanning capabilities, price/performance and image quality for the desktop market. The scanner provides technology that enhances its ease of use, and with the integration of ScanSoft OmniPage, allows people to easily set the destination of their scanned document by selecting a pre-programmed scan settings, including scan-to-searchable PDF, scan-to-print, scan-to-archive, scan-to-network and scan-to-email. Combined with ScanSoft PaperPort, this solution is poised to deliver integrated desktop applications that have all of the capabilities of professional document capture, but are easy-to-use and deploy.

ScanSoft PaperPort is the first desktop product to combine the power of creating PDF files, the convenience of local or network scanning, and the efficiency of document management into a single, easy-to-use office productivity application. PaperPort is used by millions to organize paper and electronic documents, as well as PDF and digital photographs. With PaperPort users can quickly and easily scan, annotate, email or archive documents in the PDF file format.

ScanSoft OmniPage Pro is a powerful productivity application that delivers the most accurate document conversion available, turning paper and PDF - letters, contracts, tables, manuals - into editable word processing and spreadsheet documents. OmniPage Pro saves time by eliminating the need to manually reproduce documents and spreadsheets, delivering highly precise, editable results that can be used by existing PC applications. It saves money by replacing manual filing with electronic storage and retrieval - delivering OCR accuracy. The major advantage of OmniPage Pro is its ability to combine desktop ease-of-use with advanced XML, batch processing, PDF and Open eBook capabilities - all within a single application.

"As organizations implement high-end production capture systems, they have been challenged with how best to place document capture on the desktop," said Robert Weideman, general manager ScanSoft Productivity Applications. "With this agreement, ScanSoft brings professional document capture capabilities to every office desktop, using integrated solutions that have been proven by millions to be the most effective way to turn paper into digital information."

The Xerox DocuMate 252 scanner is developed, marketed and supported by Visioneer, Inc., based on the trademark licensing agreement between the two companies announced last year.

Intuitive Document Management - Production capture applications have historically distributed scanning functionality through the deployment of scan-stations. A combination of a dedicated PC and a thumbnail-based application, these solutions are limiting because they only manage scanned image documents. The integration of ScanSoft PaperPort into the Visioneer solution provides office workers with a complete scanning and document management capability, providing capabilities that speed the organization of all PC documents - scanned, PDF, Microsoft Office and more.

Image Clean Up Tools - In order to eliminate the need for re-scanning documents, PaperPort provides users with a set of 'software rescan' tools, including de-skew, contrast adjustment, cropping and more.

All-in-One Search and Meta Data - Another limitation of traditional scan-station applications is their inability to automatically index all document types - scanned paper and PDF as well as Microsoft Office and other PC file types. PaperPort uses industry-leading OCR to automatically index image files, and also indexes digital documents. Users also have the option of inserting meta data and keywords manually. As a result, users can find all relevant documents with one search, eliminating the need to move between the scan station and Windows Explorer.

Industry-leading OCR - The integration of OmniPage into the Xerox desktop scanner provides organizations with the most accurate OCR and document conversion available in the industry. OmniPage provides everything needed for turning paper and PDF image files into editable Microsoft Office documents, or fully indexed and searchable PDF files.

Complete Support for PDF - Organizations have come to rely on the Portable Document Format as a standard way of sharing and storing scanned and digital documents. While other solutions support a subset of PDF types, ScanSoft enables the Xerox desktop scanner to support PDF image, image+text, as well as creating PDF from any PC application, such as Microsoft Office.

Document Assembly and Workflow - Because the Xerox desktop solution supports both scan-to-PDF and the creation of PDF from any PC application, people can combine scanned and digital documents into a single PDF. A Microsoft Word document can be combined with selected Excel worksheets, and then combined with scanned attachments. Users can share the resulting PDF with others using email or PaperPort's document workflow capabilities, or store the document into a wide array of content management systems.

Open Link Agents - PaperPort Link Agents provide users with the ability to drag & drop one or many documents onto icons that link to practically any desktop or enterprise application. Pre-made Link Agents include email, fax and FTP for simple document workflow, and links to Kofax Ascent Capture, WebDAV, ODMA, Oracle 9i Collaboration Suite, Microsoft SharePoint and other enterprise content management systems. The PaperPort Link Agent SDK can be used to create new or custom Link Agents.

About ScanSoft, Inc.

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is the 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 additional information on the company, please visit www.ScanSoft.com.

Trademark reference: ScanSoft, the ScanSoft logo, PaperPort and OmniPage are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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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