Technical FAQs

Question

In the PrizmDoc Viewer, what are the two different ways to load annotation layers?

Answer

PrizmDoc has two options for loading annotations, the “My Annotations” pane and the “Annotations for Review” pane.

The “My Annotations” pane is used to load a single annotation layer for editing. You can add, delete, or make changes to annotations and then save those changes using the “My Annotations” pane.

The “Annotations for Review” pane is used for viewing annotations. You can load as many annotation layers for viewing as you would like. You cannot interact with annotations loaded in this way, but you are able to make comments on them. You can toggle between any of these layers to hide them. You can also merge these annotations to the currently loaded annotation layer from “My Annotations”.

For more information see our documentation here: https://help.accusoft.com/PrizmDoc/latest/HTML/Annotation_Layers.html

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Question

When doing a text search in a document in PrizmDoc, the highlight color for the search results is a light blue background. Is there a way to change the highlight color for search results in the PrizmDoc Viewer?

Answer

You can change the highlight color specifically in the PrizmDoc Viewer file viewer.js file located in the viewer-assets\js folder of your project/application.

You will need to locate 2 instances of the search term “highlightColor: undefined” in the code block below located close to line 4400. The actual line number will vary depending on the version of viewer.js you are using. You can replace “undefined” with a hexadecimal color value which you can look up from the following site: https://htmlcolorcodes.com/

// This is a request for a new searchQuery triggered by the search input field.
// Generate new search terms, and save them globally.
prevMatchingOptions = _.clone(matchingOptions);

if (matchingOptions.exactPhrase) {
    // We need to match the exact string, as is
    if (queryString.length) {
        searchTerms.push({
            searchTerm: queryString,
            highlightColor: undefined,
            searchTermIsRegex: false,
            contextPadding: 25,
            matchingOptions: matchingOptions
        });
    }
} else {
    // Split up multiple words in the string into separate search term objects
    var queryArr = queryString.split(' ');
    queryArr = _.unique(queryArr);
    _.forEach(queryArr, function(query){
        if (query.length) {
            searchTerms.push({
                searchTerm: query,
                highlightColor: undefined,
                searchTermIsRegex: false,
                contextPadding: 25,
                matchingOptions: matchingOptions
            });
        }
    });
}
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Since they first rolled out in supermarkets in the 1970s, barcodes and barcode scanners have become essential tools in today’s globalized economy. No longer confined to retail shelves and supplier warehouses, barcodes are used across multiple industries to streamline operations and improve data accuracy. Given their continued importance, it’s helpful for developers to keep the key advantages of barcodes in mind as they build applications that could benefit from them.

Four Key Barcode Benefits

1. Efficiency

Since scanning a barcode automatically enters a large amount of data into a system, they are incredibly valuable for streamlining recordkeeping and improving efficiency. Modern supply chain and inventory management simply would not be possible without the use of barcodes. Rather than manually entering inventory and shipment data for every item into a system, employees can simply scan entire pallets, crates, and even shipping containers to instantly know what contents they contain inside. Given the sheer scale of products moving through a supply chain, barcodes allow companies to automate a key process to save time and money even as they scale operations. Barcode scanners can also streamline onboarding and training since it takes much less time to teach someone to use a scanner than to manually enter data.

2. Error Reduction

Manual data entry is notorious for its high levels of human error. According to research conducted over several decades, even workplaces with the best performance measures in place see human error rates of five to ten failures in every hundred opportunities. That’s a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, whether it takes the form of inverted characters, skipped lines, misreadings, illegible markings, or faulty keystrokes. Even worse, once an error occurs, it will often be reproduced across a system, making it very difficult to locate and remediate the original mistake. According to one estimate, errors resulting in bad data cost businesses more than $600 billion each year. Scanning a barcode, by contrast, completely automates the data entry process and significantly reduces the risks associated with manual errors. Information encoded into a barcode will be reproduced accurately each and every time the image is scanned to ensure consistency across systems.

3. Tracking

Each time a barcode is scanned, it creates another step in a data trail that can be easily referenced to locate items and events. This allows businesses to greatly improve real-time visibility into their operations. From identifying a shipment’s most recent location or determining whether or not a patient picked up their prescription from a pharmacy, barcodes help organizations and customers alike to track down information quickly and accurately. By improving visibility throughout their systems, companies can deliver a better customer experience that builds trust and prioritizes transparency. Since barcodes are easy to create and print, they can be added to almost any type of business process to streamline productivity and track essential activities.

4. Data Collection

Today’s organizations rely heavily upon data analytics to formulate their business strategy and make key decisions. The more data they have available to them, the more nuanced and accurate their analysis will be. Barcodes play a critical role in data collection strategies. Not only are they used to gather information about inventory, supply chain, and sales activity, but the latest generation of QR codes (a common form of 2d barcode) are also being deployed to learn more about customer behavior and preferences. Thanks to real-time QR code tracking, companies can see how many times the barcode is scanned, where it was scanned, and what devices were used to scan it. Gathering more extensive barcode data provides a more detailed picture of what’s actually happening “on the ground” throughout an organization and in the market. By eliminating conjecture and guesswork, businesses can make much more informed decisions that will help them to sustainably scale operations and capitalize on opportunities.

Barcode Use Cases by Industry

Although most commonly associated with retail and logistics, barcode scanners are deployed across many industries to improve efficiency and accuracy. Here are a few of the most common use cases:

  • Education: From student ID cards to tracking school equipment, educational institutions utilize a variety of barcode types and barcode scanners to streamline operations.
  • Government: Federal, state, and local governments use barcode scanning to manage access to secure facilities, catalog physical assets, and organize records. The ability to quickly create barcodes is essential for agencies that need to catalog and track documents and materials.
  • Legal, Insurance, & Finance: Various forms of barcodes can be used to improve document management, making it easier to track and organize contracts, applications, and invoices as well as flag sensitive documents that require additional security precautions.
  • Healthcare: Barcodes have long been used to streamline hospital processes such as admitting patients and accessing patient records with a simple scan rather than a protracted (and error-prone) manual process. They are especially useful for managing medications and ensuring that critical prescription information like strength and dosage remains accurate and consistent.
  • Retail: A classic use case for barcode scanning, retailers use barcodes every day to manage their inventory, track sales, and reduce shrink. Handheld barcode scanners have made it easier than ever for them to process transactions, access product information, and locate products.
  • Supply Chain: Barcode scanning technology has helped to automate key elements of logistics across multiple industries. As companies continue to do business around the world, the ability to easily track shipments and provide information to customs authorities is more crucial than ever before.

Implementing Your Barcode Solution

Despite the clear benefits of barcodes, many applications lack the basic functionality necessary to read barcodes, much less write them. Luckily, integrating those features is easy to do with the help of a code-based SDK barcode toolkit like Accusoft’s Barcode Xpress. With support for more than 30 barcode types and the powerful image processing capabilities that can clean up and repair barcodes that are broken, damaged, or poorly printed, Barcode Xpress can enhance the functionality of barcode scanners or allow Windows and Linux-based systems to locate and read barcodes on documents. Capable of reading up to 1,000 pages per minute, Barcode Xpress can turn your application into a barcode scanning powerhouse. Visit our product overview to learn more about how Barcode Xpress can solve your application’s barcode scanning needs.  

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Question

The ISIS Xpress BasicCapabilities and AdvancedCapabilities samples demonstrate a number of different ways to acquire images and save a batch of them to file, but how can I get a single image as soon as it gets acquired by the scanner?

Answer

During the ISIS Xpress Scanned() event, you can get the currently acquired page via the ISISXpress.Output property (i.e., – ISISXpress.Output.TransferTo() or ISISXpress.Output.ToHdib()).

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Question

The ISIS Xpress BasicCapabilities and AdvancedCapabilities samples demonstrate a number of different ways to acquire images and save a batch of them to file, but how can I get a single image as soon as it gets acquired by the scanner?

Answer

During the ISIS Xpress Scanned() event, you can get the currently acquired page via the ISISXpress.Output property (i.e., – ISISXpress.Output.TransferTo() or ISISXpress.Output.ToHdib()).

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Question

After applying a new license/evaluation license through the license utility on Linux, the following error appears in the logs:

{"gid":"","name":"OCS","time":"2019-01-3T18:26:39.368Z","pid":36875,"level":50,"tid":36875,"taskid":8,"FATAL ERROR":"MSO feature is active, but 'fidelity.msOfficeCluster.host' and 'fidelity.msOfficeCluster.port' are not configured, going to 'Unhealthy' state"}

What could cause this issue to occur, and how can it be fixed?

Answer

As you are running on Linux, the MSO switch on the license assumes that there are additional settings configured:

fidelity.msOfficeCluster.host and fidelity.msOfficeCluster.port

These settings are meant to point to a Windows server which has Microsoft Office 2013 or 2016 installed alongside PrizmDoc with MSO enabled. This is required for MSO functionality to be enabled.

If you wish to use the license with MSO enabled but do not have a separate Windows server, you can do the following to set the PrizmDoc service to run using LibreOffice:

  1. Make a backup of /usr/share/prizm/prizm-services-config.yml file.
  2. Edit the file in the text editor of your choice and find the following line, fidelity.msOfficeDocumentsRenderer: auto
  3. Be sure to remove the hash and leading space in front of the line and then change from auto to libreoffice.
    fidelity.msOfficeDocumentsRenderer: libreoffice
  4. Restart the service by running /usr/share/prizm/scripts/pccis.sh restart
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Despite its reputation for being slow to adapt and held back by outdated, legacy technology, the insurance industry is undergoing a tremendous period of digital transformation. A new generation of InsurTech applications are helping insurers respond more quickly to a dynamic market and empowering customers to become more engaged with their policies. InsurTech digital collaboration is a key industry trend.

Digital collaboration tools are critical to this dramatic shift, which has created a unique opportunity for InsurTech developers. By deploying features that allow insurers to streamline workflows and improve communication both with internal stakeholders and customers, developers can capitalize on an emerging need and establish their applications as the “new standard” for digital collaboration in the insurance industry.

Creating Better Digital Collaboration Tools for InsurTech Software

Accessible Viewing

The ability to easily access and view insurance documents is increasingly important to insurance agents and customers alike. When assembling a policy bundle, insurance agents must reference multiple pieces of information about customers as well as detailed actuarial data from a variety of sources. By building HTML5 viewing capabilities into InsurTech applications, developers can help underwriters reference all relevant information within their existing workflow. Rather than ponderously requesting documents from other departments and receiving them via email, and opening them with an external program, they can simply request, search for, receive, or view files without ever exiting their secure application.  

Customers, meanwhile, expect to be able to access their insurance records quickly and easily. Whether it’s a detailed description of their policy or a copy of their proof of insurance, they want the ability to log into a web-based application that allows them to locate and view records related to their account. This can greatly improve communication with their insurer since they’re able to quickly reference different aspects of their policy and identify their needs more clearly. Developers can build viewing features into an InsurTech application so customers can access their essential documents without having to download anything or take any additional steps. Insurers can also use the same features to easily provide updates about policies or rates. 

Annotations

Building an insurance policy or evaluating claims can be a lengthy and confusing process without the right digital collaboration tools in place. Documents often need to be reviewed by people in different departments before bundled services and rates can be finalized. If an InsurTech application lacks collaboration features, insurers may need to resort to emailing documents back and forth along with their comments. There is ample space for miscommunication in this scenario, with vital comments potentially going unnoticed or the wrong document being sent as an attachment.

Built-in annotation tools allow insurers to leave comments, highlight areas of concern, and provide helpful notes directly on the files themselves. Developers can also make it possible to share and view those documents entirely within the application environment, which reduces the risk that someone will overlook important comments or compromise privacy by opening a file with poorly secured software. Annotation markups are stored separately from the original file until they need to be burned into a new copy. This protects the integrity of the source document throughout the collaboration process.

Version Control

One of the biggest challenges with digital collaboration is maintaining version control over documents. When multiple people are working on a file, it’s important to make sure that everyone is using the most up-to-date version of it. This is especially true of insurance documents because rates and risk adjustments can sometimes change quite rapidly. The last thing an organization (or their customers) want is to have inconsistencies spread across several documents due to poor version control.

Developers can combat version confusion by keeping every stage of document workflows within their InsurTech applications. Version problems are usually caused by people downloading documents, working on them in isolation with a separate program, and then uploading their changed versions back into the application. By making it possible to view and annotate content within the application, developers can help ensure that everyone is working from the most up-to-date version of every file. 

Conversion

InsurTech applications must be able to handle a wide range of file types if they’re going to effectively facilitate digital collaboration. Customers often need to upload images as part of their insurance claims and will often provide documents as scanned images that can’t be searched for key text. Without the ability to convert files into more manageable formats, collaboration can quickly become an exercise in frustration and confusion.

Conversion tools not only make files more accessible, but also make it easier to manage content. Several small documents, for instance, could be combined into a single file for faster access, review, and markup. Developers can also incorporate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) into their InsurTech application to extract the text from a document image and use it to create a searchable PDF for more convenient reference. These conversion tools provide a great deal of workflow customization that allows their customers to set up efficient processes that help them deliver better services.

Boost InsurTech Digital Collaboration with PrizmDoc Viewer

Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Viewer is an HTML5 that integrates smoothly into your InsurTech application to deliver a powerful array of digital collaboration tools. Using a sophisticated collection of REST APIs, PrizmDoc Viewer provides support for multiple file types and can easily convert between formats to simplify insurance workflows. It also features a full range of annotation and redaction tools as well as OCR text extraction and electronic signature features.

With three decades of experience developing imaging and document management technology, Accusoft offers a variety of software integrations that can support digital collaboration efforts. From document assembly to secure spreadsheet support, our collection of SDKs and APIs can provide the features your InsurTech application needs to meet the evolving demands of the insurance industry. Check out our InsurTech fact sheet to learn how you can turn our capabilities into your capabilities.

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Question

In PrizmDoc, my document appears to be small on the page relative to the viewer. How can I fix this?

enter image description here

Answer

By default, PrizmDoc renders a PDF file according to the MediaBox, which is normally the same as CropBox, though sometimes this is not the case. The larger area you see in the PrizmDoc Viewer is the size of the MediaBox. Please note that the product provides the fileTypes.pdf.pageBoundaries control option (or useCropBox in the older versions) to change the default behavior. Try setting the option to cropBox in the Central Configuration File in order to get the PDF content rendered according to the CropBox. You can read more about configuring image frame rendering in our documentation here.

For additional reading, see 7.7.3.3 on “User Space” of Adobe’s PDF 1.7 specification:

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf

Note: In some older versions of PrizmDoc, there exists an issue where setting the pageBoundaries field to cropBox can cause light blurring/distorting on the page. This issue was addressed in version 13.4.

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Question

In PrizmDoc, my document appears to be small on the page relative to the viewer. How can I fix this?

enter image description here

Answer

By default, PrizmDoc renders a PDF file according to the MediaBox, which is normally the same as CropBox, though sometimes this is not the case. The larger area you see in the PrizmDoc Viewer is the size of the MediaBox. Please note that the product provides the fileTypes.pdf.pageBoundaries control option (or useCropBox in the older versions) to change the default behavior. Try setting the option to cropBox in the Central Configuration File in order to get the PDF content rendered according to the CropBox. You can read more about configuring image frame rendering in our documentation here.

For additional reading, see 7.7.3.3 on “User Space” of Adobe’s PDF 1.7 specification:

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf

Note: In some older versions of PrizmDoc, there exists an issue where setting the pageBoundaries field to cropBox can cause light blurring/distorting on the page. This issue was addressed in version 13.4.

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Question

Using ScanFix Xpress (as illustrated in the ImageCleanUp sample) I can deskew an image, but the leftover blank space is filled with a user-specified pad color, which might clash horribly with the edges of the original image. Is it possible to automatically detect a matching pad color before executing a deskew operation?

Answer

A simple approach would be to crop off the four edges of the image, specified perhaps by a percentage of width/height floor-bound by a minimum pixel count, then use the RGBColorCount method from ImagXpress on each edge to generate a histogram for each color channel, find the most frequent or average intensity (or some combination of the most frequent and the average), and then find the average intensity among all four edges. Then this resultant color could be used as the pad color for the image when it is deskewed.

For example, you can crop out portions of an image using the Crop method of the Processor class…

// Crop out the top edge of the image referred to by proc.Image
Rectangle cropRectangle = new Rectangle(0, 0, inputImg.Width, verticalSliceSize);
_processor.Crop(cropRectangle);
return proc.Image;

We can do this for all four edges of the image. Then, for each edge, we can determine the frequencies at which each intensity occurs in the image’s pixel grid using the RGBColorCount Method…

int[] redHistogram, greenHistogram, blueHistogram;
_processor.Image = edge;
_processor.RGBColorCount(out redHistogram, out greenHistogram, out blueHistogram);

…now, redHistogram, greenHistogram, and blueHistogram will contain the frequencies of red, green, and blue intensities (0 to 255), respectively. We can use this data to extrapolate either the most frequent or the average intensity (or some combination of the two) in each channel. We can then construct RGB triplets representing the detected border color for that edge, and then average the values for each edge to get the appropriate overall pad color. 

For example (using an average intensity)…

public int[] DetectEdgeAverageColor(ImageX edge)
{
    int[] averageRGB = new int[] { 0, 0, 0 };
    int[] redHistogram, greenHistogram, blueHistogram;
    _processor.Image = edge;
    _processor.RGBColorCount(out redHistogram, out greenHistogram, out blueHistogram);

    int numPixels = edge.Width * edge.Height;
    averageRGB[0] = findAverageIntensity(redHistogram, numPixels);
    averageRGB[1] = findAverageIntensity(greenHistogram, numPixels);
    averageRGB[2] = findAverageIntensity(blueHistogram, numPixels);
    

    return averageRGB;
}

…

private int findAverageIntensity(int[] frequencies, int numPixels)
{
    double averageIntesntity = 0;
    for (int intensityValue = 0; intensityValue < 256; intensityValue++)
    {
        int frequencyOfThisIntesity = frequencies[intensityValue];
        averageIntesntity += (intensityValue * frequencyOfThisIntesity);
    }
    averageIntesntity /= numPixels;
    return (int)Math.Round(averageIntesntity);
}

This should produce an RGB triplet representing a color similar to the edges of the image to be deskewed.

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For many years, the legal industry proved resistant to the changes that were pushing other organizations toward digital transformation. Although the serious shocks of the 2008 financial crisis were not enough to spark a revolution in LegalTech automation, they did at least get many firms to start thinking differently about how they deployed technology. 

After enduring the disruption of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, firms are finally implementing the software applications that will help them to deliver legal services far more effectively. In order to understand what’s driving today’s LegalTech trends, it’s important to first recognize why changes that didn’t take place in 2008 are happening now.

Why 2020 Differs From 2008

The legal industry was not spared the impacts of the 2008 financial crisis. Rather than reassessing their fundamental business model, most firms reacted to the recession by laying off personnel. According to the National Association of Law Placement (NALP), nine percent of US associates lost their jobs over a nine month period between 2009 and 2010. 

While this strategy managed to protect profits in the short term, it had a negative impact on their talent pipelines in the long run. More importantly, firms also had little immediate incentive to rethink their business processes. Reducing personnel and increasing rates allowed them to meet their immediate revenue goals, and the basic structure of delivering legal services remained mostly unchanged. And, to be fair, many LegalTech automation platforms were not yet mature enough at that time to deliver clear value, especially when compared to the costs of implementation. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has presented firms with a very different set of conditions. Almost every sector was impacted and it was not immediately clear how long the disruption would last. Social distancing requirements made it all but impossible for attorneys to meet with clients in person. After the initial wave of salary cuts and furloughs, firms were forced to think about how they could continue to deliver services in the midst of a pandemic.

Customer expectations have also changed dramatically since 2008. Legal clients expect faster, more efficient services delivered at a competitive price point. In order to grow revenue beyond 2020, firms will need to reorient themselves to do more with less, adopting the technology infrastructure that allows them to build more efficient processes and automate low value tasks so partners and associates can focus on other areas.

Post-2020 LegalTech Trends

Historically, the business model of most legal firms focused on immediate priorities and a reactive demand model that proved resistant to automation and efficiency. Since firms tend to look to metrics like PEP (Profit per Partner) to judge the health of the business, investing in process-oriented technology that would enable support staff to work more efficiently was rarely appealing. That’s because such investments would eat into short-term profits without offering a clear benefit in the future. 

But those benefits had very real potential, especially for firms and legal departments willing to look at different, less partner-driven business models that put more emphasis on customer-centric services. The firms that made the difficult decision to invest in LegalTech automation early now find themselves in a better position to thrive in a post-2020 landscape than competitors who were slower to adopt.

While premier “big law” firms will likely continue to offer high-value legal work to clients that require more specialized, strategic services, other firms and departments will be in an ideal position to capitalize on the type of work that benefits more from LegalTech automation. Specifically, they can leverage technology to meet known demand, or the day-to-day low to mid-level legal services that many customers expect and budget for. This is the type of work where efficient processes and automation make it possible for firms to take on more work and quickly scale their operations. It’s also a more customer-centric approach that acknowledges the ability to deliver legal services swiftly and cost-effectively will be a tremendous competitive advantage in the years ahead.

A Second Chance at Digital Transformation

Moments of crisis and disruption typically provide organizations with the opportunity to innovate and rethink their approach to how they do business. The legal industry, however, largely failed to adapt significantly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Firms were often unwilling to change their processes or invest in new technology solutions, which makes it even more vital for them to adapt in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In some respects, the industry is getting a second chance to undergo true digital transformation. Due to the unique circumstances of the 2020 downturn, there is every reason to expect that the demand for legal services will grow substantially in 2021 and beyond. From cases and contracts that could not be resolved during the pandemic to a broad range of lawsuits related to COVID-19, legal organizations will need to put the right digital tools in place to handle caseloads efficiently. 

Stay Ahead of LegalTech Trends with Accusoft Integrations

In order to keep pace with rapidly developing LegalTech trends, developers need to be able to build versatile and reliable software that they can bring to market quickly. Building innovative tools to facilitate contract negotiation and eDiscovery is challenging enough without also creating the content processing and conversion capabilities that facilitate them. That’s why LegalTech development teams under resource and time constraints frequently turn to specialized integrations that allow them to add essential features without pulling their attention away from their core area of focus. This helps them get their products to market faster to keep their customers ahead of the latest LegalTech trends.

Accusoft’s collection of powerful SDK and API integrations allows developers to build the features they need on their own terms. For instance, PrizmDoc Editor’s document assembly capabilities allow firms to automate the contract creation and editing process to minimize human error and boost efficiency. PrizmDoc Viewer’s conversion, annotation, and redaction features make it an ideal fit for eDiscovery workflows that require high levels of flexibility and security. And when it comes to managing different types of documents and files throughout the legal process, having an image processing SDK like ImageGear that can convert, compress, and OCR a broad range of file types can transform a LegalTech application into a content management powerhouse.

To learn more about how Accusoft’s collection of processing solutions can help your team meet today’s LegalTech automation challenges, talk to one of our industry specialists.

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