Back by popular demand are LEAD white papers! There are many ways that we here at LEAD get the word out on how to use LEADTOOLS to create real-world solutions including this blog, CodeProject articles, support forums, code tips and the like. Lately we have had some requests for more in depth examples and solutions using LEADTOOLS which are best suited for a white paper format. So without further ado, here's a description of our first white paper in the upcoming series:

Using LEADTOOLS OCR to Enhance Google Drive Search
Google Drive is a wonderful service for storing, organizing and sharing files such as documents, photos and videos. However, TIFF and other raster image file formats can get easily lost because of the limited search capabilities. With LEADTOOLS, developers can use its OCR SDK to extract the text and then add it to the IndexableTextData for each item.

LEADTOOLS Version 18, also known as LEADTOOLS Anywhere™, is designed with the purpose of opening new opportunities and easing the development of high quality imaging applications that can run anywhere. Since V18's release earlier this year, we have published several articles on The CodeProject showing the benefits of using LEADTOOLS to create multi-platform, native apps for .NET, WinRT, iOS, OS X and Android.

This month we are continuing that series and have written an article showing the beauty and simplicity of using LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ for barcode recognition. For each platform, it only requires a few simple lines of code to detect and recognize barcodes from still images and video streams. Head on over to The CodeProject, grab the latest evaluation for LEADTOOLS V18 and see for yourself how LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ can increase your mobile app's ROI.

Now that LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ has hit the market, LEAD Technologies is publishing several of its demos as free application utilities for the Windows Store, Google Play and the App Store. Below are the latest free WinRT apps approved for the Windows Store that showcase the award-winning LEADTOOLS technology such as formats, image processing, OCR, Barcode, DICOM and PACS. The source code for each of these demos is available in the main LEADTOOLS evaluation to help get developers started on their LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ projects.

• LEADTOOLS Image Processor
• LEADTOOLS OCR
• LEADTOOLS Barcode
• LEADTOOLS DICOM Viewer
• LEADTOOLS Medical Web Viewer

Publishing our demos to the respective mobile app markets for Windows, Android and Apple is much more than just another way to spread the word about LEADTOOLS Anywhere™. As many developers are aware, the approval processes for these stores are very stringent, especially when your application uses a third party SDK. By taking our demos through these approval processes, LEAD has gone the extra mile to ensure your development experience with LEADTOOLS is hassle-free.

In order to show off the new LEADTOOLS Anywhere ™ technology, LEAD recently published several free apps for WinRT on the Windows Store. Today, we are announcing three new Android apps approved for Google Play. Showing off nearly identical features as their WinRT siblings, these apps showcase not only the award-winning imaging technology for formats, image processing, OCR and Barcode, but show how easy it is to create native apps for multiple platforms with LEADTOOLS Anywhere™. The source code for each of these demos is available in the main LEADTOOLS evaluation to help get developers started on their LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ projects.

• LEADTOOLS Image Processing
• LEADTOOLS OCR Demo
• LEADTOOLS Barcode Demo
• LEADTOOLS DICOM Viewer Demo
• LEADTOOLS Medical Web Viewer Demo

We have more apps for iOS on the way and should hit the App Store any day now. If you're an Apple iPhone, iPad or iPod user, stay tuned for our next announcement for these exciting and free apps!

Annotation and Markup has been a staple feature in LEADTOOLS Document Imaging SDKs for almost two decades. Over the years it has undergone several transformations, some cosmetic and some structural. LEADTOOLS Annotations, which started as a CDLL API, were also ported to new technologies as they came along: C++ Classes, .NET, WPF, Silverlight, HTML5 and more. Not only did we add new interfaces with the release of LEADTOOLS Anywhere™ in Version 18, but the Annotations library took on another big change that will not only future-proof the library, but also make cross-platform application development a breeze.

Compared to our current offering, the new annotations design and format in LEADTOOLS V18 most closely resembles the .NET interface. Developers using .NET, WPF, Silverlight, HTML5/JavaScript, WinRT, iOS, OS X and Android now share identical libraries. On top of the uniform programming interface design, the annotation file format which LEADTOOLS loads and saves has been standardized as well, allowing annotations to be loaded and saved in any LEADTOOLS application, regardless of its development platform.