ABBYY USA Announces Availability of New Version of Award-Winning FlexiCapture Studio; Technology to Extract Data from Semi-Structured Forms and Documents.

FREMONT, Calif. -- ABBYY USA, a leading provider of document recognition and linguistic technologies, today announced North American availability of ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio 1.5, a powerful software tool that is based on core FlexiCapture technology. FlexiCapture Studio is used for extracting data from semi-structured forms and documents, but unlike other semi-structured forms processing technologies, FlexiCapture is offers a GUI-based design environment versus a script-based one. This allows users to create a logical description of any semi-structured form or document, then use that description, or FlexiLayout, with an enabled capture application to simplify and expedite the processing task. With added support for new layout formats and pre-processing functions, the latest version of FlexiCapture further increases accuracy in analyzing and reading multiple form layouts, making it an ideal tool for processing multiple types of semi-structured forms and documents.

"Most businesses straddle the worlds of paper and digital documents. To integrate the two, a good document capture system must be able to extract important information from documents and make it usable. With its easy-to-use interface, ABBYY FlexiCapture expands data capture capabilities beyond that of traditional fixed-template forms processing solutions and is able to bridge the gap between semi-structured documents and structured data," said Susan Feldman IDC Vice President of Content Management and Retrieval Solutions. "ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio identifies and locates data from various semi-structured forms and documents, and, working in conjunction with the company's recognition technology, it provides a tool to automate semi-structured document processing including document conversion, classification, and data location and extraction. In other words, it captures information from semi-structured documents and then transforms it into structured data that can be integrated into electronic systems."

ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio gives integrators and developers the tools to create formalized descriptions (FlexiLayouts) for any kind of semi-structured form -- documents in which the location of key data fields (such as date, invoice number and amount) varies from page to page. FlexiLayouts are essentially flexible form templates that enable ABBYY FormReader and ABBYY FineReader Engine SDK to effectively locate key data on forms and documents for extraction into databases and information management systems. FlexiCapture Studio is designed for use by integrators and VARs developing custom solutions for forms and document processing, or large-scale enterprises choosing to develop specialized data capture in-house. It is ideally suited for processing invoices, financial reports, agreements, resumes, shipping orders, letters, way-bills, and a variety of other semi-structured documents.

"ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio represents advanced technology in a simple tool," said ABBYY USA President and CEO Dean Tang. "With FlexiCapture's ability to classify, index and extract in a single package, we provide an offering to developers and integrators that will reduce development time, and will open up new avenues for business with a lower learning curve, respectively."

ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio 1.5: What's New

ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio 1.5, has been enhanced to make semi-structured document processing even more accurate and intelligent, with the end objective to minimize the amount of adjustments required for each project.

A[micro]   ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio 1.5 offers the following new
enhancements:

A[micro]   --  Support for new layout formats:

A[micro]       --  Table Blocks: enables proper reading of tables in
            documents, providing easy extraction of line-item details.
            Ideal for processing invoices and other financial
            documents.

A[micro]       --  Specialized Numerical Elements
A[micro]           Support for new "Phone" and "Currency" element types
            streamlines the description of this type of data on the
            form and thus increases capture quality.

A[micro]   --  Pre-recognition in FlexiLayout Creation

A[micro]       --  Texture Filtering
A[micro]           Enhanced pre-processing technologies screen out irrelevant
            texture that may affect recognition quality.

A[micro]       --  Multiple Language Selection
A[micro]           This new feature enables the pre-selection of
            mixed-language combinations, for example English-German,
            for easier processing of multiple language documents.

FlexiCapture Studio: Powerful Yet Easy-To-Use Tool

ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio is a powerful tool, based on ABBYY's award-winning FlexiCapture technology. It allows developers to create FlexiLayouts for any kind of semi-structured document, regardless of its complexity. FlexiCapture Studio makes the creation of semi-structured document templates easy, offering a user-friendly interface for implementing FlexiCapture technology; tree-view option for easy viewing of image elements; useful options dialogs; and an image window with assigned objects. Integrators can work with FlexiCapture without any programming experience, making layout creation fast and easy. Even for involved documents, complex low-level coding is not necessary. Additional advanced tools, such as hypothesis trees, and the ability to create reference layouts further streamline the template-creation process and help improve the accuracy of data capture. FlexiCapture Studio also offers a FlexiCapture language for fine-tuning layouts.

Benefits for VARs, Integrators, and Developers

By using ABBYY FlexiCapture technology, VARs and system integrators can expand their business by creating customized solutions for semi-structured document processing, or by offering a wide range of implementation services for their clients. Used in creating FlexiLayouts for any kind of semi-structured document, ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio provides the ability to address a variety of new markets. In addition, once a FlexiLayout is ready, it is easy to integrate into a data capture process by using it along with ABBYY FormReader or by creating third party applications using ABBYY FineReader Engine. It is also possible to use the same FlexiLayout in different data capture projects for processing of the same type of documents.

Pricing and Availability

ABBYY FlexiCapture Studio 1.5 is available now and can be purchased for use with ABBYY FormReader 6.5. FlexiCapture Studio 1.5 will also be available for use with future versions of ABBYY FineReader Engine. For additional product information, pricing and a trial version, please contact your local ABBYY office or ABBYY partner, or visit www.ABBYY.com.

About ABBYY

ABBYY USA is a member of the ABBYY Software House Group, a world leader in document recognition and linguistic technologies. ABBYY specializes in the development of software for optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), linguistics, semantics, and electronic lexicography. Leading products from ABBYY include the FineReader line of OCR, ICR and barcode software, and FineReader development tools. Companies that license ABBYY OCR/ICR technologies include BenQ, C-Technologies, EPSON, Freedom Scientific, Kurzweil, Kofax Image Products, Legato Systems, Microtek, Mustek, NewSoft, Notable Solutions, Optika, Panasonic, ReadSoft, SER Solutions, Samsung Electronics, Sumitomo Electric Systems, Umax, and Verity. For more information about ABBYY, visit: www.abbyyusa.com or contact ABBYY USA, 47221 Fremont Boulevard, Fremont, CA 94538. Phone: [phone]. Fax: [phone]. E-mail: [e-mail].

ABBYY names and logos are registered trademarks of ABBYY Software House. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby recognized.