ScanSoft PaperPort Professional 10 Wins Prestigious Editors' Choice A

    Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

    PEABODY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2005--

    PC Magazine Editors Hail PaperPort's PDF and Search Capabilities, Dubbing it "...the best way to archive and organize documents we've ever found."

    ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), the global leader of speech and imaging solutions, today announced that the recently released ScanSoft(R) PaperPort(R) Professional 10 has received the prestigious Editors' Choice award from the editors of PC Magazine, following a rigorous technical and usability analysis of the product. This is the second year in a row that PaperPort has garnered an Editors' Choice award from PC Magazine, and it was also named one of the "Best Products of 2003."
    PaperPort Professional 10 is the world's most popular scanning and document management application for Microsoft Windows. Used by millions - from the home office to legal, medical, corporate and government organizations - PaperPort allows people to quickly organize all of their PC files, including scanned paper, PDF, digital documents and photographs. The product does this by combining the ease of One-Click Scanning, complete support for PDF and the convenience of All-in-One Search(TM) into an easy to use desktop application.
    In its review, PC Magazine praised PaperPort Professional 10 for its ability to search, customize and annotate PDF documents, including the ability to batch scan-to-PDF for archive and search. The product includes ScanSoft(R) PDF Create!, the fast and affordable way to create PDF from any PC application, supporting all of the PDF features needed in business environments - automatic PDF creation, including merging multiple files of various types into a single PDF; security, including 40- and 128-bit passwords and permissions setting; automatic and customized font embedding; watermarks and stamps; and short-cuts for Microsoft Office applications.
    The review also touts one of the most significant features of PaperPort - its ease of use."Best of all, the user interface is similar to Windows Explorer, so you already know how to use it.... Unlike Windows Explorer, you can page through the thumbnails of multipage documents right on the desktop, stack and unstack files to create multipage documents, and more."
    The complete review by Alfred Poor can be found in the March 8, 2005 issue of PC Magazine and on the Web at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1748915,00.asp.
    "The tremendous success of PaperPort 9 set a high bar for us to reach with the new version, especially in terms of sales, user delight and industry recognition," said Robert Weideman, senior vice president, ScanSoft Productivity Applications Division. "In our first two months it appears that we will not only reach that bar, we will move the bar up a few more notches. We thank the editors of PC Magazine, a respected and trusted information source for comparative reviews, for this honor."

    About PaperPort Professional 10

    PaperPort Professional 10 revolutionizes the way people organize, find and share their PC documents. The new release of PaperPort makes it easier than ever to find files on the PC through All-in-One Search, which enables a single search word or phrase to find not only digital content, but also scanned paper, PDF documents and even digital photographs. In addition, with the Split Desktop and Workspace in PaperPort Professional 10, users can work in multiple folder locations at the same time, minimizing confusion and enabling affordable, centralized document archiving for workgroups. The new release of PaperPort also features One-Click Scanning and Scanner Enhancement Technology (SET) tools to make it possible for everyone to achieve professional-quality document capture from practically any scanning device. Lastly, PaperPort Professional 10 enables document assembly through its unparalleled support for the PDF document standard. Scan-to-PDF is built directly into PaperPort, as is the ability to convert any format into PDF. ScanSoft PDF Create! is included with PaperPort 10, giving users fast PDF creation from within any PC application, as well as the ability to merge multiple files into a single PDF.

    About PC Magazine

    PC Magazine, the independent guide to technology, delivers comprehensive labs-based reviews and the most trusted recommendations for buyers of technology products and services. Reaching more than 5.9 million highly engaged technology readers, PC Magazine provides product reviews, first looks at emerging technologies and products, and opinionated columns from renowned technology pundits. To meet its readers' needs for buying information that is as current as it is comprehensive, PC Magazine publishes 22 times a year in print and continually on the Web at www.pcmag.com.

    About ScanSoft, Inc.

    ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is the global leader 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, the ScanSoft logo, PaperPort, and All-in-One Search are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All other company or product names mentioned may be the 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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CONTACT: ScanSoft, Inc. Erica Hill, 978-977-8466 erica.hill@scansoft.com

KEYWORD: MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HARDWARE COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS SOFTWARE SOURCE: ScanSoft, Inc.

Copyright Business Wire 2005