ABBYY Launches FormReader 6.5

ABBYY Software House, a leading provider of document recognition and linguistic technologies, today announced worldwide availability of ABBYY FormReader 6.5, a feature and functionality enhancement to ABBYY's turnkey form processing solution. The FormReader 6.5 release adds support for new document input and output formats and new add-on options, functions that enhance the versatility of the software platform. With the option of adding FlexiCapture technology, FormReader is capable of processing both fixed and semi-structured forms in one batch without pre-sorting. All these features, combined with options for distributed processing across an enterprise and customization through an easily accessible API, make the ABBYY FormReader platform one of the most flexible platforms for data capture available in a single, unified environment.

Based on ABBYY's award-winning technology, FormReader offers cutting-edge OCR, ICR, OMR, and OBR technologies to extract key pieces of data from forms for export to a variety of databases and information management systems. An out-of-box solution, FormReader offers helpful tools to make the process of setting up a form processing solution simple, allowing companies and integrators to deploy a system without a significant investment in IT resources. Powerful functions for fixed form template design and creation, validation, and verification, give FormReader all of the core functionality required for efficient data capture. In addition, ABBYY FormReader is based on an expandable, modular architecture, making it simple to extend the system to support a variety of options, tasks, enterprise configurations, and document types.

ABBYY FormReader is available in three versions:

- FormReader Desktop Edition, basic fixed-form processing for small to mid-sized work groups on a desktop computer;

- FormReader Enterprise Edition, a client-server based product designed for regular or daily high volume processing and advanced features to support distributed document processing, network administration and roll-out, and license management;

- FormReader Developer Edition, an API for customization or integration of FormReader into other applications.

New Features in FormReader 6.5
With the introduction of FormReader 6.5, ABBYY offers the following new options for FormReader customers:

Multi-page Document Assembly - ABBYY FormReader Desktop Edition is now enriched with multi-page document support, previously available only with FormReader Enterprise Edition. ABBYY FormReader will correctly assemble and sort these documents and export them so that multiple pages of data can be easily assigned to a single table string or database record. Document assembly accuracy is checked by using a special link field.

PDF Support - available in two new add-on modules for PDF - PDF Opening and PDF Saving. The PDF Opening module allows customers to input data from forms and documents scanned as PDF files. The PDF Saving module allows users to save original form images back into the PDF image format.
High Production Scanning Via ISIS Scanners - also available as a new add-on module. FormReader now supports input from scanners using the ISIS scanning interface. This makes it possible for FormReader to work seamlessly with high speed, high production scanners commonly used by organizations such as business process outsourcing (BRO) companies.

Visual Basic Script Support for Validation Rule Creation - FormReader's powerful set of options for creating rules used for automatic validation of recognized data, is now even easier to customize. Administrators can now create any rule by using the Visual Basic Script programming language.

Semi-structured Document Support Via FlexiCapture Studio 1.5 - FormReader 6.5 now supports semi-structured form and document processing through support for FlexiCapture Studio 1.5, also released today. FlexiCapture Studio is an easy-to-use tool that allows integrators and administrators to create FlexiLayouts, intelligent form definitions that allow FormReader to find necessary field data on a document even when the location of the field varies from document to document, or page to page. This add-on module allows FormReader to process both fixed forms and semi-structured forms such as invoices, shipping orders, and loan documents in one batch. New features supported through FlexiCapture Studio 1.5 (and thus through FormReader 6.5) include table support, texture filtering, and multiple language selection for pre-recognition.

In addition to the previous enhancements to FormReader's core functionality, the following new features are available via FormReader Enterprise Edition:

Export via OLE DB - provides direct uniform access to data stored in diverse information sources.
eFormDesigner - a new add-on module for creation and testing of electronic forms. To simplify the initial steps of establishing a form processing system, the electronic forms can be created automatically on the base of paper form blanks created in FormDesigner. With eFormDesigner, administrators can expand the capabilities of the system so that any form type - scanned paper document or electronic form - can be processed using the FormReader system. eFormDesigner ships with eFormFiller a module that makes filling out forms created with eFormDesigner, comfortable and easy.

Enhanced Network Configuration Functions - including remote installation and upgrade of new workstations using the Active Directory.

Flexible Platform to Support a Wide Range of Documents
With a powerful core platform and wide variety of add-on options, ABBYY FormReader 6.5 can support processing of a variety of forms and documents such as applications, tax declarations, questionnaires, etc. FormReader products and technologies are already in use around the world by such organizations as banks, insurance and law companies, marketing and polling agencies, government establishments, and educational institutions.

With the addition of FlexiCapture technology, the FormReader platform additionally supports processing of invoices, financial reports, letters, agreements, and documents with tagged headers and footers, making it an all-encompassing solution for processing forms of all types.

Partner Programs
ABBYY FormReader products are sold through select certified VARs, integrators and resellers. ABBYY offers a comprehensive training and certification program for partners designed to demonstrate how to take advantage of FormReader's tools for easy system deployment and customization. Partners can further enhance their businesses by using ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio to expand FormReader capabilities for their customers.