The LEADTOOLS ImageViewer is a cross-platform viewer that provides image display controls for desktop, web, tablet, and phone applications. Not only can this viewer display more than 150 different file formats, it also has a numerous amount of interactive modes that can be incorporated to your company's workflow. These modes provide an efficient and friendly user experience.

Once you get the ImageViewer up and running, there is so much more that you can do besides viewing images. You can add options to annotate and mark up images, OCR images, and improve the image quality of document images with the LEADTOOLS Document Cleanup Image processing functions. The LEADTOOLS ImageViewer library can be added to just about any workspace and help you out within minutes, so try it out!

The Microsoft Build Digital Event will be held today through May 20th starting right now! (11AM ET) We are looking forward to hearing what developer announcements Microsoft is sure to unveil! The fun doesn't end on Wednesday, however, be sure to join us on May 21st at 1PM EST on twitch.tv/csharpfritz for a post show event recapping all of the excitement and highlights from Microsoft Build as well as many other partner updates and of course - giveaways and prizes. Our very own Hadi Chami will be talking with Michael Jolley during the post show event and demoing our upcoming V21 Document Analyzer. Don't miss out!

Microsoft Build Post Show: May 21, 2020 - 1:00 p.m. ET

twitch.tv/csharpfritz

PDFs are used virtually everywhere and by everyone these days. Throughout most organizations, PDF documents are vital to business applications and workflows. Many industries such as insurance agencies, financial institutions, and legal practices have standardized their document management systems on the PDF format due to the file format’s portability and versatility.

How these PDFs are being consumed depends on the type of PDF being dealt with. There are two main types of PDFs: image and searchable. For example, if you use a word processor to save the PDF, then that most likely will be a searchable PDF and you may copy/paste the text within the document as you please. On the other hand, if you use a scanner to convert paper to PDF, that most likely will be an image PDF and you will not be able to be able to search the text.

Even if you use a scanner to create an image PDF or were sent an image PDF by someone else, there still is a way to make it searchable. This happens through OCR and OCR is what LEADTOOLS does best! Developers are able to easily make automated OCR solutions and achieve these image to searchable PDF conversions with as little as five lines of code thanks to LEAD's powerful OCR libraries. These solutions are what save people and companies their two most valuable resources: time and money.

MICR detection and extraction technology is a very important piece of many applications in the banking, finance, legal, and insurance industries that can’t afford to rely on slow, error-prone manual data entry. The MICR line at the bottom of all checks consists of three separate numbers, which are the check number, account number, and bank routing number. The MICR font is made out of a magnetic ink that is intended to limit check fraud. The reason magnetic ink is used is because it allows computers to recognize the characters even if they have been covered by a signature, cancellation marks, or other types of marks.

The two most commonly used video compressions are AVC (H.264) and HEVC (H.265). The majority of HD broadcasting, video sharing, mobile streaming, and digital surveillance use either an H.264 or H.265 video compressor. We all remember saving videos to our PCs and how much disk space they would take up as well as how long they would take to upload for sharing. Converting those videos with the LEADTOOLS H.264/AVC compressor will decrease the file size by roughly 30% and converting with the LEADTOOLS H.265/HEVC compressor drops the file size by nearly 60%. You may be thinking, "Well, it's been saved at a lower bit rate, so the quality must have dropped". That is not the case though. These compressors will maintain the same visual quality as the original, so there is no need to worry. With everything being recorded at much higher resolutions - 2k and 4k - these days, the H.265 compressor is a better solution than H.264. Many of the online streaming sites have encoded their videos with H.265/HEVC compressors, which helps to greatly reduce lagging and dreaded "buffering" message.