MatthewWilliamson4040
commented
1 month ago I've been exploring different APIs that could easily support our feature. One that caught my attention deserves a closer look. Although I haven't personally tested it, it appears promising. It purports to address our needs for both PDF and OCR capabilities within a single solution. It also apparently supports a wide variety of scanners.
The API is named NAPS2 SDK.
@devbobnwaka has noted that numerous clinics and businesses are transitioning from paper to digital formats, a process that can be challenging for administrative staff. To facilitate this transition, I suggest employing document scanning technology. This would involve using scanners, smartphones, and other devices to create digital copies in formats like PDF.
There are several C# APIs capable of facilitating this process. Following a brief discussion and feature review, selecting the most suitable API should be straightforward. For instance, if smartphones are used as makeshift scanners, we could utilize an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) API to extract text from images and incorporate it into a new PDF. It's also possible to preserve the original formatting, such as font, size, and indentation. Additionally, we might consider allowing users to edit the document post-capture before finalization.
This aims to resolve the problem of smartphones capturing low-quality images. Consider the outcome if you were to snap a photo with your phone; the quality would probably be disappointing. This solution enhances the image to such an extent that you wouldn't discern it wasn't created in a word processor and then converted to PDF. It should also refine outputs from conventional scanners, albeit they would generally require less correction.
I plan to delve deeper into this topic over the coming days and will return to share my discoveries.