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ABBYY Announces FineReader 6.0 OCR Development Tools for VARs, Integrators, and Corporate Developers

March 13, 2002

ABBYY FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 and ABBYY FineReader Engine 6.0 deliver everything from basic customisation of existing applications to a full development kit for building OCR-enabled applications from the ground up.

ABBYY FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 and FineReader Engine 6.0 Deliver Customization and Integration of OCR Functionality Across the Spectrum 

ABBYY today announced two new developer tools based on the new FineReader 6.0 optical character recognition (OCR) technology. Designed to meet the varied demands of developers creating OCR-based applications, ABBYY FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 and ABBYY FineReader Engine 6.0 deliver everything from basic customization of existing applications to a full development kit for building OCR-enabled applications from the ground up. ABBYY’s wide range of FineReader tools offer ideal solutions for everyone from system integrators to VARs, and corporate developers.

Scripting Edition: OCR Customization For Mid- To High- Volume Production

FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 provides automation Application Programming Interface (API) tools that allow developers and advanced users to customize the FineReader 6.0 applications. In addition to all of the text recognition, format retention, pre- and post OCR processing, and easy-to-use functionality offered in the FineReader Professional 6.0 and Corporate Edition applications, Scripting Edition provides full control over the application functions from the outside application. This makes it an ideal solution for developers who want to enhance the FineReader applications for mid- to high volume document processing. By writing a few lines of code, developers can perform the following functions:

  • Customize FineReader for a specific need. Developers working with FineReader Scripting Editioncan automate tasks by creating special commands and buttons within the user interface. For example, an organization may create a script and button to command and automate a series of functions –such as processing TIF images, saving them as PDFs, and then moving the result to an archive folder.
  • Integrate FineReader functions into other products or systems. FineReader Scripting Edition allows developers to control application functions such as page analysis and recognition, batch and export settings, and application windows. Each of these functions can be incorporated into other systems via external calls to the FineReader application. For example, a developer who wants to add text recognition capabilities to his document management system could architect his/her system to make calls to the FineReader OCR application. FineReader would process scanned images and then pass the results to an assigned destination, such as a database or indexing engine. The benefit is that a developer can quickly and efficiently incorporate this functionality without having to develop the it from scratch.

The ABBYY FineReader Scripting 6.0 Edition API fully complies with the COM standard and may be used with any development tool that also supports the COM standard, such as Visual Basic, C++ or scripting languages.

Engine: Full SDK for Integration of OCR, ICR and Barcode Recognition Technologies

For developers who demand greater functionality and control, FineReader Engine 6.0 provides a full software development toolkit (SDK) for integrating ABBYY’s FineReader OCR (machine print), ICR (handprint), and barcode recognition technologies into Windows applications. FineReader Engine 6.0 is a set of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs). The Engine API can help customers integrate FineReader’s core technology, or “engine,” into existing applications or build applications from scratch. The product offers a complete set of document imaging functions including: image input, image pre-processing, page analysis, recognition, and export.

Purposes for which FineReader Engine 6.0 are useful include: enterprise content and document management, OCR/ICR related products intended for high-volume production environments and consumer markets, processing of paper forms, fax processing, Internet and Intranet content creation and publishing. The toolkit can also be used for building reading systems that scan books and other documents, perform OCR, and then read text aloud using a synthetic voice.

The ABBYY FineReader Engine 6.0 API fully conforms to the COM standard and can be easily used by C/C++, Visual Basic, Delphi, or any other development tool that supports the COM standard.

Built on Next Generation Technology: New Features for 6.0

Both Scripting Edition and Engine are based on ABBYY’s 6.0 recognition technologies that include the following core enhancements:

  • Improved recognition accuracy. Fine Reader Engine 6.0 includes ABBYY’s newly developed Intelligent Background Filtering technology. This innovative system employs new algorithms (adaptive binarization and texture filtering) to filter background noise and texture and reduces the number of word errors on low-contrast, color and degraded documents by up to 35%.
  • Extended language support – FineReader 6.0 technology recognizes 177 languages – more than any other OCR tool and an important advantage for developers with global market products. In addition, FineReader Engine now supports OCR-A, OCR-B and MICR fonts.
  • Improved layout retention – FineReader technology offers a host of new page analysis capabilities for increased accuracy, including improved format retention of non-rectangular pictures, multi-column pictures and wrap-around text; better retention of letter spacing and line length; retention of bulleted and numbered lists; and retention of text alignment within table cells.
  • Extended export options – FineReader Engine 6.0 features a new mode of saving in PDF: image only. This extends the product’s PDF output abilities to now include four modes. Also, the products include foreign language fonts that enable the export of multilingual PDF documents without the need to install additional fonts.

Flexible Purchasing and Licensing Models

ABBYY FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 will be offered in April in two versions based on the FineReader 6.0 applications:

  • FineReader Professional Scripting Edition 6.0 -  to support the FineReader Professional 6.0 application for small office and home users. Pricing starts at 840 Euro . This includes one developer license and one distribution license of the FineReader Professional 6.0 application.
  • FineReader 6.0 Corporate Scripting Edition - to support the FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition for business users in networked environments. Pricing starts at 2475. This includes one developer license and 3 distribution licenses of the FineReader 6.0 Corporate Edition application.

Each FineReader Scripting Edition 6.0 package includes a fully functional version of the FineReader 6.0 OCR application software with open API, necessary developer documentation and developer and distribution keys. Pricing is based on an initial developer tool fee and scales according to the version and the number of pages processed. Additional distribution (end user) licenses are also available.

ABBYY FineReader Engine 6.0 will be available in May through a flexible licensing model that allows developers to select the type of licensing that is best suited to the product and its sales strategy – including four Engine versions with the ability to flexibly change of functionality in each version, flexible limitation the pages processed number. ABBYY also offers support for development of customised, turnkey solutions for data input. For more detailed information on both products, see the ABBYY Web site at https://www.abbyy.com/.