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Leadtools.Forms.Ocr Introduction

LEADTOOLS OCR Class Library provides programming tools for quickly and easily adding document optical character recognition (OCR) technology into software applications. Using the LEADTOOLS OCR Module, programmers can perform character recognition on document images and output recognized text to over 20 file formats.

LEADTOOLS makes OCR development easier with auto-zone detection, manual zone creation, auto-orientation, document image clean up, and the use of preset values for common document images to improve recognition results. The LEADTOOLS OCR Module supports over 100 languages as well as output document options like document margins and paragraph options.

Supported output formats include:

• Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF and PDF/A)
• Microsoft Word (DOCX and DOC)
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Text (ASCII and UNICODE)
• Microsoft Rich Text Format (RTF)
• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
• Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMF)
• LEAD Temporary Document (LTD)
• Open XML Paper Specification (XPS)
• Microsoft Excel (XLS)
• ALTO XML

OCR Engines

The LEADTOOLS OCR class library offers support for multiple OCR engines. Currently, LEADTOOLS ships with the following:

• LEADTOOLS OCR Advantage
• LEADTOOLS OCR Professional
• LEADTOOLS OCR Arabic

With the LEADTOOLS OCR class library, the internal workings of the various engines are hidden and represented in a uniform class library. You should be able –if desired- to switch among any of the supported OCR engines without changing your application code or logic.

Standard OCR Engine Options

The following standard options are available in all OCR engines:

• OMR (Optical Mark Recognition)
• Auto/manual zoning
• Formatted output
• PDF output

Additional OCR engines are in the planning and development stages.

Key Features:

• Support for multi-threading and server-based OCR operations
• Create multiple documents OCR documents in your application. Each document contains its own list of pages
• Select the language to use in recognizing the OCR pages
• Use dictionaries for improving OCR results (Advantage engine only)
• Recognize a variety of documents, including facsimiles, photocopies and documents with complex layouts
• Save the document in any of several output document formats including PDF, MS Word as well as regular text
• Correct document characteristics such as noise, darkness, and lightness to achieve the best possible character recognition
• Recognize a variety of documents, including facsimiles, photocopies and documents with complex layouts
• Use artificial intelligence to improve recognition on documents of the same type.
• Segment complex pages manually or automatically into text, image and table recognition zones. Powerful zone recognition tools include:
  • Whole page recognition as one zone
  • Manual specification and recognition for multiple zones within each page
  • Automatic area segmentation for creating multi-layered zones and recognizing areas such as tables, rulers, images and text
  • Specifying a different specialized options for each zone, including OMR, MRZ and MICR
  • Displaying document pages with or without their zones
  • Importing and exporting zones from and to files
• Recognize text and colors within tables

Additional Features:

• Recognize text from 5 to 72 points in any typeface
• Recognize multiple languages within one document
• Recognize and export text, choosing from a variety of text, word processing, database, or spreadsheet file formats
• Process documents in two-page mode for open-faced books and magazines