AI-based classification
Advanced classification algorithms leverage modern Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing technologies and offer highest document classification quality together with more flexible classification options, new classification modes and improved classification API

New input formats Office documents
Office document formats can be now processed in addition to the image input formats and PDF input formats (implemented since the Release 3 in the Windows and Linux versions).

Extraction of data from Machine Readable Zones (MRZ) in ID documents
The new functionality allows to automatically extract personal information from ID documents (implemented since the Release 3 in the Windows and Linux versions).

New functionality for detecting differences in different versions of the same document
The new Compare Documents functionality provides the ability to discover differences in text of two document versions, independently of the document format (implemented since the Release 4 in the Windows version).

Improved accuracy of Japanese OCR
Improved accuracy together with the new “Japanese Modern” OCR language. New 'special predefined language' for enhanced recognition of dates, times, addresses and names

Faster recognition of Chinese & Korean
Due to the usage of the newly trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for Asian OCR languages (implemented since the Release 3 in the Windows and Linux versions).

Improved recognition accuracy of Arabic & Korean
With the help of new AI-based algorithms, the recognition accuracy for both languages was significantly increased ((implemented since the Release 4 in the Windows version)

New deployment in the Cloud
New type of license 'Online license' supports deployment within the Cloud environment (e.g. services like Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Azure), virtual environments and Docker containers.

ICR & OMR added to the Linux version
The functionality for recognition of hand-printed texts (ICR) and for recognition of optical marks (OMR) were introduced in the Linux version (previously available in the Windows version only). Both functionalities are now available in the FineReader Engine for Windows and in the FineReader Engine for Linux.

Improved layout reconstruction
Improved tables reconstruction, detection and recreation of balanced text columns, improved layout retention on TXT export.

New export formats
HTML 5, ALTO 3.1 (the latest ALTO XML scheme is supported)

New PDF saving options
The latest PDF 2.0 standard support & export to PDF in accordance with PDF/UA standard support. In addition, in the Windows & Linux versions, a broader set of tags for tagged PDF export formats is available.

New PDF/A saving options
PDF/A-2b and PDF/A-3b support

New XML saving options and improvements
Faster export to XML, direct export of list elements and export an information about tab-space characters.

Read more: FineReader Engine 12 - What is new Overview