LEADTOOLS Version 19 is here! It is one of the most highly-anticipated and feature-packed releases ever. LEAD Technologies is once again raising the bar with unique and innovative imaging technologies, frameworks and solutions, and continues to prove why they are The World Leader in Imaging SDKs.

Since there are so many new features in this new release, we will highlight the new and improved technologies in each engine over the next few days. Today, we will be starting with the Document Imaging SDK Technology in LEADTOOLS, which is headlined by the new Document Viewer and Document Converter frameworks for .NET and HTML5/JavaScript.

In the “Secure PDF Files With a Password in C#, VB, and Java” article, we described how to use the PDFFile class from the PDF SDK to password protect and encrypt PDF files. Using the PDFFile class also makes digitally signing PDF files just as easy! The PDFFile class is available for .NET FX, .NET Core, and Java.

Today, we are happy to announce a major update to LEADTOOLS Version 19. Special focus was given to the LEADTOOLS Document and Medical Imaging engines, each of which we will cover in a blog post.

First up, let's take a look at what's new in the Document Imaging Engine:

OCR

• Faster deskew on high resolution (600DPI and greater) images
• Memory optimizations for auto zoning algorithm (up to 60%)
• Improved paragraph, font and zone detection
• Support for vertical text zones
• Detect vertical and horizontal table cell direction
• Text Book option which enhances graphic zone detection through cleaning of noisy texts
• Memory and speed enhancements for Advantage OCR engine's Native spell checker
• Native x64 support for Professional OCR engine
• Rotation angle support for all engines

Forms

• Improved invoice recognition accuracy

Documents SDK

• Convert and Save documents with the zero-footprint HTML5 Document Viewer
• Faster SVG and raster image rendering, thumbnail generation and bookmark extraction in Document Viewer
• Faster OCR and SVG conversion using multi-threading in the Document Converter
• Support for ZIP compression in the Document Converter
• Enhanced output for PDF and Word
• Support for vertical text zones
• SVG viewing and conversion support for HTML, RTF and TEXT
• DOCX and PPTX support for Windows Phone 8.1

Annotations

• Faster DirectX rendering engine for WPF and WinRT
• Fill objects with linear gradient brush
• Improved clip drawing for objects outside container bounds
• Draw and edit annotations at the same time
• Drag and drop for multiple containers
• Pan and zoom objects while they are still selected
• Select objects using extended key
• Advanced text editor for HTML5 annotations
• RenderedObjectBounds property for calculating real bounds

Barcode

• Perspective correction for PDF417 barcode
• More accurate detection for corrupted barcodes
• Improved detection of small 1D linear barcodes

Formats

• XMP metadata
• Read metadata from Office and vector formats

Web Scanning

• Send and receive user data to scanning service and upload server
• Customization options for scanning service

Stay tuned to see a list of new features and updates to our Medical Imaging SDKs. To read more about this exciting update, see the official press release!

Several of my friends that do not consider themselves to be programmers have asked if I know of an easy way to merge multiple PDF files into one file. Of course, I instantly thought of using LEADTOOLS in PowerShell.

To get started, you need the LEADTOOLS assemblies and a license file. If you have not already purchased LEADTOOLS, you can download and request a 60-day evaluation license from our website. From there, all you need is a text editor to create your PS1 script file.

I have attached the complete PowerShell script to merge multiple PDF files into single file as well as launch.json file for VSCode. Below are some snippets so you can get an idea of how easy this is.

You might have heard about how LEAD has a world-class Document Converter. Our Document Converter can easily transform HTML to PDF. The portability of a PDF allows you to access content from webpages across multiple devices both on- and off-line.

Below are a few code snippets to convert HTML to PDF.