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

SmartZone v7.1

7.1 Product Updates for SmartZone ICR/OCR

Added support for OCR-A font.
Fixed an issue where some exception messages were obfuscated.
Updated supported Date field patterns by adding support for international date formats.
Added support for selecting multiple languages to SmartZone OCR.
Added support for Chinese Simplified language on Linux.
Added support for user dictionary to SmartZone OCR.
Updated OCR engine to the latest version for Chinese Simplified support on Linux, and improved performance and accuracy.

SmartZone v7.0

7.0 Product Updates for SmartZone ICR/OCR

Added support for .NET Standard 2.0.
Added support for loading 8-, 24- and 32-bit images.
Added Linux support.
Added NuGet dependency packages, Accusoft.SmartZone.Runtime.Win/Lin, to Accusoft.SmartZone.Net package.
Removed NuGet dependency package, Accusoft.SmartZone.Runtime.Win, from Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.Net package.
Running dotnet publish now copies the required OCR assets from the NuGet packages to the publishing folder.
Microsoft Windows CRT libraries updated to version 14.30.30708.0.
Added Java License Manager and Server Licensing Utility for Linux.
When you download SmartZone, an Evaluation license is enabled automatically for Windows and Linux.

7.0 Breaking Changes for SmartZone ICR/OCR

The classes Accusoft.SmartZoneICRSdk.SmartZoneException and Accusoft.SmartZoneOCRSdk.SmartZoneException now derive from System.Exception instead of System.ApplicationException.
Unsupported characters have been removed from all predefined character sets in the CharacterSet class. See Upgrading SmartZone OCR for more details.
Some native libraries that were previously integrated in the Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.Net assembly are now included as separate dlls. These libraries will be extracted to the same directory as the assembly when using the Nuget Package. The libraries are named Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.Common.dll and Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.Common64.dll on Windows. For Linux distributions, the name of the file is Accusoft.SmartZoneOCR.CommonLinux64.so. These need to be included when redistributing any application that uses the SmartZoneOCR SDK.
Some native libraries that were previously integrated in the Accusoft.SmartZoneICR.Net assembly are now included as separate dlls. These libraries will be extracted to the same directory as the assembly when using the Nuget Package. The libraries are named Accusoft.SmartZoneICR.Common.dll and Accusoft.SmartZoneICR.Common64.dll on Windows. For Linux distributions, the name of the file is Accusoft.SmartZoneICR.CommonLinux64.so. These need to be included when redistributing any application that uses the SmartZoneICR SDK.

7.0 Known issues for SmartZone ICR/OCR

SmartZone OCR does not support recognition of Chinese Simplified on Linux.

SmartZone v6.1.1 for .NET

6.1.1 Product Updates for SmartZone ICR/OCR

Fixed an issue with ReadFromStream (ICR: ReadFromStream; OCR: ReadFromStream) that would mistake a custom character set for a known character set.

SmartZone v6.1 for .NET

6.1 Product Updates for SmartZone ICR/OCR

Improved the RecognitionParameter demo's user interface to more easily demonstrate full page recognition. See the topic Demos for more information.
Improved the ImageCleanupAndRecognition demo's user interface to more easily demonstrate full page and zonal recognition. See the topic Demos for more information.

6.1 Product Updates for SmartZone OCR

Added language support for Central European languages, which includes Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Sorbian. See the topic Define and Edit Character Sets for more information.
Added language support for Cyrillic languages, which includes Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian. See the topic Define and Edit Character Sets for more information.
Added language support for Baltic languages, which includes Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian. See the topic Define and Edit Character Sets for more information.
Added language support for Afrikaans, Basque, Catalan, Faroese, Frisian, Guarani, Greek, Hani, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Kirundi, Latin, Luxembourgian, Malay, Quechua, RhaetoRomanic, Rwanda, Shona, Somali, Swahili, Wolof, Xhosa, and Zulu languages. See the topic Define and Edit Character Sets for more information.
Added language support for Asian languages, which includes Traditional Chinese, Traditional Hong Kong Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese. See the topic Define and Edit Character Sets for more information.
Note: Recognition using these languages is only available with a SmartZone license that has Asian Language Recognition enabled. See Asian Language OCR Recognition for more information.
Updated demos to recognize the new languages and characters added with this release.
Renamed NuGet package Accusoft.SmartZone.Runtime.Latin to Accusoft.SmartZone.Runtime.Win. See NuGet Packages for more information.

6.1 Documentation Updates

Added new topics:
Added a new “Is this page helpful?” question to the bottom of each page, allowing you to send “Yes” or “No” feedback with a single click.

SmartZone v6.0 for .NET

6.0 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.

6.0 Product Updates for SmartZone OCR

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.

6.0 Breaking Changes for SmartZone ICR/OCR

(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.