This section contains information on new features and improvements for each release.

SmartZone v6.0 for .NET

Product Updates for SmartZone ICR/OCR

We've made it easier for you to get started evaluating and using SmartZone:
- When you download SmartZone, an Evaluation license is enabled automatically.
- Instead of a Windows installer, we now offer an official NuGet package as well as an official ZIP file. The ZIP file contains additional content not present in the NuGet package, including product demos and links to resources.
Raised the minimum required version of .NET Framework to 3.5 (earlier versions of .NET Framework are no longer supported).
Upgraded demos to use Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019, and removed demos for older Visual Studio versions.
Consolidated SmartZone ICR help and SmartZone OCR help into one SmartZone ICR/OCR help output.

Updated the recognition backend to now use another OCR technology. (See Upgrading SmartZone ICR and Upgrading SmartZone OCR for more information)
Changed default character sets for some languages.
Added support to allow adding characters from other supported languages.
Improved multithreading to allow sharing one SmartZone OCR instance with several threads.

(SmartZone OCR only) Updated the recognition backend to use a different underlying OCR technology. See the Upgrading topics (Upgrading SmartZone ICR and Upgrading SmartZone OCR) for more information.
Raised the minimum required version of .NET Framework to 3.5 (earlier versions of .NET Framework are no longer supported). See System Requirements for details.
Removed ThumbnailXpress and TwainPro components from the product to keep product focus on SmartZone and streamline customer evaluation. These components are still available separately as part of ImagXpress.
Dropped support for Operating Systems that are no longer supported by Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. See System Requirements for details.
We no longer distribute a traditional installer. Instead, we’ve made a ZIP package and NuGet packages available.
Removed the major version number from the assembly names to make future upgrades easier.
We no longer offer the Standard edition.