Available: on-premises, cloud
Overview
The RecoStar HOCR plugin is a part of the Page Process module, by default. The following snapshot illustrates the plugins that are typical for the Page Process module:
This plugin uses the RecoStar OCR (optical character recognition) engine for generating HOCR XML files. This plugin reads the image files listed in the batch.xml file of a batch instance and generates an HOCR XML file for each batch instance.
Ephesoft Transact can decode barcode values with this plugin using the barcode-enabled .rsp project file.
Configuring the Recostar_HOCR Plugin
Perform these steps to configure the RECOSTAR_HOCR plugin in the Page Process module:
Note: The Administrator user account is required for this procedure.
1. Launch the Ephesoft Transact application and select Administrator > Batch Class Management.
The system prompts you to log in. Provide login parameters as prompted.
The Batch Class Management screen appears, displaying all the batch classes currently contained in Transact.
2. Open the batch class to be configured. Select (check) the batch and click Open.
3. In the navigation pane on the left side, expand the Modules section for this batch class. Click Page Process to display the plugins currently configured for the Page Process module.
4. Click (highlight) the RECOSTAR_HOCR plugin. The Plugin Configuration screen appears on the right.
| Configurable property | Type of value | Value options | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| RecoStar Project File Name | List of values | • Fpr.rsp • Fpr_Multi Language.rsp • Fpr_ Barcode.rsp |
This option is used to specify the project file name used for performing OCR. |
| RecoStar color switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
If the color switch is set to ON, then a PNG file will be used for performing OCR.
If the color switch is set of OFF, then a TIF file fill be used for performing OCR. |
| RecoStar Auto Rotate switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
This property is used to auto-rotate the input images on the basis of orientation computed by the RecoStar . |
| RecoStar Switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
Use this switch to enable or disable this plugin. |
| Barcode Switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
This property is used to read the barcode from the input images using the barcode-enabled RecoStar project file e.g. ‘FPR_Barcode.rsp’ |
| RecoStar Valid Extensions | List of values | • tif • gif • png |
RecoStar supports these three formats when performing OCR. The user can configure the allowable format of the image for performing OCR. |
| RecoStar De-skew Switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
This property determines whether or not input images must be de-skewed. |
| OCR Country/Language | List of values | Multiple countries and languages | Type the country or countries to be supported in OCR operations or the language or languages to be supported. If you enter more than one value you must separate each value with a semi-colon (;) and no space. The system prompts you with a dropdown menu when you start typing input. |
| RecoStar Font Switch | List of values | • ON • OFF |
In Ephesoft Transact 4.5.0.0, a new Font Recognition switch was introduced to detect potential fraud and tampering with processed documents. The HOCR file reflects the font style (Bold or Italics or Underline) and font size if the Font switch is turned ON in the RECOSTAR_HOCR or NUANCE_HOCR plugins.
The RecoStar Font Switch allows the user to detect any data that has been manually altered or added to the documents. By default, the Font Switch is set to OFF. The following example illustrates how to use this setting:
For additional information about the RecoStar Font Switch setting, refer to Fraud Detection Using OCR Font Switch. |
Matching RECOSTAR_HOCR and RECOSTAR_EXTRACTION_PLUGIN
It should also be noted that if you are using the Recostar HOCR plugin and the Recostar Extraction plugin in your batch class, the configuration in the UI for these two plugins must match in regards to using color documents. If the color switch is turned on in the RecoStar HOCR plugin, the same switch must be turned on in the RecoStar Extraction plugin.
Refer to the following article for additional information:
Dependencies for the RECOSTAR_HOCR Plugin
Dependency on Input Image
This plugin only requires an image as an input. This plugin supports the PNG image format if the color switch is ON, and the TIFF image format if color switch is OFF.
Note that one of the following plugins must be present in the Page Process module prior to the RECOSTAR_HOCR plugin:
- Create OCR Input Plugin
- Create Display Image Plugin
The batch class folder inside the main shared folder contains a folder by the name: recostar-extraction.
This folder contains the RecoStar Project file as specified by the first property.
If the file selected does not exist in the folder, then the file by the same name, and that is located in the native RecoStar, is used for performing OCR:
{Ephesoft-install-dir}\Application\native\RecostarPlugin\bin
Using the RECOSTAR_HOCR Plugin
This plug-in works in the Page Process module of the Ephesoft Transact workflow when all the import processing on the batch has been completed.
1. This plugin extracts the contents of the image using the RecoStar OCR engine.
2. This plugin uses the .rsp file present inside the following directory and folder:
{SharedFolder-intall-dir}\BC*\recostar-extraction
In the case that there is no .rsp project file present in the folder mentioned above, then the file is present in the following directory and folder instead:
{Ephesoft-install-dir}\Application\native\RecostarPlugin\bin
3. If the barcode switch is ON (enabled), then the .rsp project file being used to perform OCR must be enabled for barcode extraction.
Troubleshooting the RECOSTAR_HOCR Plugin
The following table summarizes a few error messages that the administrator may receive if there is an issue with OCR operations:
| Error Message | Possible Root Cause |
| Invalid License, so could not be verified. |
|
| Problem in verifying License. | Unable to connect with Ephesoft license server or some error occurred at Ephesoft license server side. |
| Unable to load Fpr.rsp file. | RSP file used for processing is invalid. |
| Exception while reading from XML. | Unable to process batch xml file or batch xml is invalid. |
| No valid extensions are specified in resources. | No valid extension has been selected. |
| Image Processing or XML updating failed. | Unable to update batch xml. |
| File has invalid extension. | File processed by RecoStar has invalid extension. |
| Unable to parse Orientation tag in RecoStar xml file. | RecoStar xml file has invalid value for Orientation tag. |
| Unable to rotate the file:according to the values specified in its xml. | RecoStar xml file has invalid value for rotation. |
Additional Information
For additional information about the RECOSTAR_HOCR plugin, refer to the following article: