ABBYY FineReader vs. OneNote

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ABBYY FineReader
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
ABBYY FineReader is a PDF editor that allows users to convert, edit, share, and collaborate on PDFs. FineReader also converts scanned documents into searchable PDF files.
$16
per month per user
OneNote
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's OneNote is a digital note-taking app, supporting photos, annotating, web page clipping, emailing, and synchronizing notes across devices.N/A
Pricing
ABBYY FineReaderOneNote
Editions & Modules
FineReader PDF Standard for Windows
$16
per month per user
FineReader PDF Corporate for Windows
$24
per month per user
FineReader PDF for Mac®
$69
per year per user
FineReader PDF Standard for Windows
$99
per year per user
FineReader PDF Corporate for Windows
$165
per year per user
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ABBYY FineReaderOneNote
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
ABBYY FineReaderOneNote
Small Businesses
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Score 9.8 out of 10

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Medium-sized Companies
MSB Docs
MSB Docs
Score 9.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Conga Composer
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Score 9.3 out of 10

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User Ratings
ABBYY FineReaderOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(3 ratings)
7.8
(71 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
ABBYY FineReaderOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
ABBYY
FineReader is critical for any business that handles scanned documents or works with files that need conversion to Excel, PDF, Powerpoint or various other programs. It's ability to automatically process, read documents and suggest tables is impressive. It can take printed documents and convert all of the text to a editable format which is a huge time saver. In regards to tables it can automatically find and identify columns and separate them out for immediate use in Excel
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Microsoft
In my opinion OneNote is a must for anyone who does business. It’s versatile, stable and sustainable. It can keep private information private - like passwords. It can be used for collaborative work - like standard operating procedures. It is fairly easy to use and far superior to pen and paper. When used for meeting notes, it can be flagged with icons that are searchable - like ideas or important items. You can even create Outlook tasks on the fly
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Pros
ABBYY
  • OCR scanning
  • Refining scanned text
  • Sophisticated and flexible OCR settings/adjustments
  • High-quality editing and document comparison tools
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Microsoft
  • Because of its flexibility and ability to hold different types of content (text, images, tables), it is a great tool for collecting content from different resources and organizing it in one place.
  • Technical support analysts are using sections for their support case analysis; they paste pieces of logs, screen-shots, document their steps in troubleshooting etc., all in one section, to get the full picture yet stay organized.
  • The logic of content structure; Notebook>Section>Page>Paragraph, allows you to manage and collect all needed information by the areas of the user's responsibility. For example; each of my projects has its own section, in which each page is a task.
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Cons
ABBYY
  • A versioning system of the work done or the editions that have been saved in the files, or a tracking of changes between one version and another would be fabulous
  • An improvement that would be asked would be as previews or suggestions of the type of file that could be beneficial to use in an edition
  • The redesign of the panels is that of the analyzed document, the edition and the changes in my opinion need a resizing to have a better view of the work
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Microsoft
  • The table editing tools are too simplistic and lack the features found in other Office products.
  • Some content loses its rich text formatting when being pasted into OneNote. A workaround is to paste the content first into Outlook or Word and then copy/pasting that into OneNote.
  • Microsoft is moving away from a local install of OneNote, which means notebooks have to be in the cloud in Office 2019. This will actually reduce the usefulness of OneNote in some environments and opens the door to competitor products.
  • Update: Microsoft has now announced that it will continue to support OneNote 2016 through 2023. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/ba-p/954922
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Likelihood to Renew
ABBYY
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As this is not a compulsory tool in our organization, I would say all depends on the decision makers, however since this is a part of MS Office, I am sure we will have it for as long as we will possibly need it. However, I would not be so sure, if it was a separate product
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Usability
ABBYY
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I find OneNote incredibly usable. I'm fairly middle of the road when it comes to tech savvy-ness. The platform was very easy to learn and explore. I like that OneNote is no clunky and offers a clean interface. This is important when it comes to deciding if a tool is usable for multiple people.
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Performance
ABBYY
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Overall, I rate OneNote's performance highly. In general, notebooks, sections and pages load quickly. OneNote integrates with other apps and info ca easily be shared/copied to and from the tool to other tools. Moreover, Notebooks tend to sync quickly meaning shared notebooks are up to date almost immediately provided there are no syncing issues.
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Support Rating
ABBYY
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Since it is part of Microsoft Office and used across the globe there are a lot of support options available. It's quickest to just do a google search which will have plenty of articles to help you since there are so many OneNote users but as an Office customer you also have access to Microsoft support and I have had good experiences with their support (probably because I'm with a large company who is a large customer to them).
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Alternatives Considered
ABBYY
While Adobe Reader can identify documents and convert them to some other various formats, it cannot process the documents to identify tables for use in Excel. We only had success by letting Adobe read a file for any identifiable text but it wasn't always accurate. FineReaders ability to handle hundreds of pages at once felt leaps and bounds above Adobe
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Microsoft
I tried using Evernote and it is an equally usable tool, however, I prefer the interface and capabilities of OneNote. OneNote seems much easier to use and understand. I think that may primarily be because OneNote is a Microsoft application and I am very used to using Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, etc. I also use OneNote to keep my grocery list. It does as good of a job as the grocery list applications out there, only I like the flexibility I have with OneNote and how I specifically do my shopping.
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Return on Investment
ABBYY
  • ABBYY FineReader is an irreplaceable tool for preparing documents for document management systems and getting the most of them afterward
  • Great time saver in various scenarios related to work with scans and photos of documents
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Microsoft
  • OneNote has become our organizational standard method of taking electronic notes (though some still prefer pen and paper.) It has been a zero cost outlay due to its freely available nature.
  • Its integration with other Microsoft Office products makes it easy to share notes and content between products, allowing for easy collaboration where needed.
  • OneNote's integration with OneDrive ensures that individual's notes are always safe and secure, taking away the tedious responsibility of backup from the user, and makes it happen seamlessly in the background.
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ScreenShots

ABBYY FineReader Screenshots

Screenshot of a display of the options: view, edit, and convert PDFs or compare different versions.Screenshot of PDF editing in FineReader, which is almost like a Word document, where users can rewrite text paragraphs, edit the content in tables, or rearrange the layout.Screenshot of the software's collaboration features, with the ablity to comment on, annotate, or mark up documents.Screenshot of PDF to Word document conversion.Screenshot of fillable fields, in a PDFScreenshot of PDF organization options, which include the ability to merge and rearrange pages, or adding Bates numbering and stamps.