Kofax Total Agility - Changes in OCR engines

Change is inevitable and in technology it is happening at an unprecedented pace. Kofax is no exception, on newer versions of Kofax Transformation Modules A2iA, Recostar and FineReader OCR engines are getting deprecated. All these engines were available with Kofax for a long time, maybe more than a few decades. It is weird to see something getting deprecated, which you have been using almost every week of your work life. Below error messages on Kofax TotalAgility 7.10 indicate a new beginning.

Three OCR engines that are getting deprecated,

• ABBYY FineReader
• Recostar
• A2iA

OmniPage to replace both Recostar and FineReader

OmniPage(version 21.1.0.6) with improved components is set to replace both Recostar and FineReader engines. OmniPage will be the only free engine on the product now.

[1] After the KTA upgrade to 7.10 from the previous version, copies of the older Finereader and Recostar will be created as new Omnipage recognition profiles with similar(almost) names. See the highlighted profiles. 

[2] OmniPage will also be used in the Barcode locator from this version, 

[3] Handwritten data reading improvements on OmniPage are claimed to be matching with FineReader handwritten data capability

A2iA will be replaced by Parascript Recognition Engine

A2iA has two main capabilities when it comes to reading text from images,

• Handwritten text reading
• Check Processing

Here are some important points about Parascript engine,

[1] Parascript engine requires extra license just like A2iA

[2] For handwritten data reading, existing customers with A2iA will get equivalent license count and full check reading license

[3] A2iA check reading capability will be replaced by a dedicated Check Locator with more simplified settings. Here is a snippet of Check Locator

Note – Extra licenses are required to use this. Existing A2iA customers get full licenses

Here is a side-by-side comparison between FormXtra and OminPage for handwritten data reading capability. FormXtra seems to be more efficient when it comes to accuracy.

Handwritten data read by OmniPage,

Handwritten data read by FormXtra,

Note – Both Name and Date are read correctly in this instance by FormXtra engine.

Another paid engine – Kofax Clarity

This engine uses cloud vision capabilities. If you are working on a use case where text reading is needed from documents or photos that requires text from any location on the image, you can consider this capability. For handwritten data reading, this engine could generate good results as well.

Conclusion

Kofax has put good effort to make these transitions easy for existing customers. They have provided like-to-like replacements for all three engines. Long standing association between these recognition engines and Kofax is coming to an end. A2iA FineReader and Recostar will be missed by customers who have been using these for years.

Please let me know your comments if this article helped you, and if you would like me to explore and share info on any other topic related to Kofax. Please try it out if you are working on Kofax Total Agility.

Reference – Kofax Official Product Documentation