It has been another interesting year full of innovations, new industry trends and developments in our industry. AI is everywhere. It's changing the way developers build software, journalists write stories, and industries operate.
AI and Document Processing
Developers become more productive by delegating routine tasks with GitHub Copilot. Software library API documentation is moving to different places. Instead of opening the API reference or relying entirely on wizards like IntelliSense, Copilot suggests typical code usage based on examples and code snippets available on the web. For many years, our code snippets used in blog posts and hundreds of sample applications have been hosted on GitHub, which provides very good results when using Copilot in combination with TX Text Control APIs.
AI-powered help systems were on our radar early on, as we always try to think ahead to provide our users with the best services available. In 2024, to make developing with our tools an even better experience, we plan to provide more customized AI-powered help systems for our libraries.
In the future, AI will be a part of every business application that is built with TX Text Control. Document analysis, contract summary, or AI-powered document template generation are just a few applications of artificial intelligence in digital document processing. To demonstrate how AI can be integrated into applications built with TX Text Control, we have built some prototypes.
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Typical use cases for integrating AI into TX Text Control based applications are described in the following articles.
Integrating OpenAI ChatGPT with TX Text Control to Rephrase Content
We believe that LLMs and other AI layers will become commoditized, and based on Microsoft's announcements at various conferences, and based on conversations I've had with Microsoft executives, these services will be deeply integrated into Azure for use by any developer, similar to other services such as machine learning models or infrastructure services such as load balancers or Azure Functions. This means that AI will be part of the .NET Framework or a layer on top of it, and that libraries like TX Text Control should provide interfaces to this functionality. Our role is to provide interfaces, typical use cases and user interfaces for the integration of AI into document processing workflows.
Electronic Signature Processes
Every day, we talk to our users. In countless conference calls, we help companies navigate through the options available to them for modernizing their document processing tasks. We build new features, products, and workflows based on these conversations and the needs of our users. Electronic signatures are one of the fastest growing applications and we have been able to provide a leading component for integrating legally binding signature workflows into .NET and Angular based applications. We get more feedback and requests for changes, new features and improvements with every new project, every new industry and every new use case. We are proud to say that TX Text Control is used in a large number of important workflows in the corporate and government sectors for the electronic signing of documents.
To improve signature capture for e-signature processes, we released many new features in our Document Viewer in 2023. We added support for PDF.js as a PDF renderer, restructured the viewer as a Web Component, and introduced compatible regular expressions for form field validation.
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After the final Release Candidate (RC) phase, we finally released Document Viewer 31.2.2 with features such as PDF.js support, multiple instance creation, and .NET compatible regular expressions.
Document Viewer 31.2.2 Final Released: PDF.js, Web Component and Regular Expressions
We also announced new ways to collect signatures from users, so that signatures can now be drawn, written, and uploaded from images.
Everything you need to know about the legal aspects of electronic signatures, digital signatures and the online signing process can be found in the following article.
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Thousands of companies use electronic signature tools to improve the signing experience. They automate their business processes and save weeks of work. In this article, you'll learn everything you need to know about the legal aspects of electronic signatures, digital signatures, and the online signing process.
New Releases and Stats
Every year we release new versions, products, and service packs. This year we released 4 service packs for different versions of TX Text Control, 1 major release of TX Text Control, a new version of DS Server and many new features in our client-side libraries using NuGet updates.
We have fixed 296 known issues across all of our products that have been reported by our users.
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Learn more about the new features that we have released with the 32.0 release. Features include SVG export, footnotes, SVG rendering mode, and a faster creation time.
Growth: Leader and Innovator
We have been on a fantastic growth trajectory for years, and we have no plans for change.
With a clear focus on digital document processing, we will set the standard as a leader and innovator in PDF creation, electronic signatures, reporting and document editing.
Bjoern Meyer, CEO
Based on our strategy to help transform paper-based processes into modern, digital workflows, we strive to reinvent ourselves and be the innovative force in the market.
We are a 100% investor free company. We offer high quality products developed by our engineers in Germany and the United States. The PDF and document processing market has consolidated in recent years, and products from acquired vendors have become obsolete. Companies have been acquired and technologies have disappeared.
We want to create value for our users, focus on innovation with transparent roadmaps and pricing, and deliver products our users can rely on today and in the future.
This year, we announced our partner program in several key industries where our products are widely used, including healthcare, banking, and insurance. We learn and improve our products for each specific application by getting input from development teams in a variety of industries. It is this kind of win-win collaboration that makes our technology so much better and gives our partners exactly what they need and want.
Community: Conferences
The developer community is very important to us, and our support of the community is very rewarding. This year, we educated thousands of developers about digital document processing by sponsoring 12 different conferences around the world. This is a very important aspect of our company's mission, and we believe 100% that face-to-face conferencing is especially important in today's work models, whether it is home, office, or hybrid. Getting together with other developers to share your knowledge and to learn from interesting speakers is a fantastic way to grow as a developer.
In 2024, we will be adding a couple conferences to the circus to be even more present. The developer conferences themselves are also changing. Learning is important, but socializing and having fun outside of the usual work environment opens the mind to new ideas and creativity. For years, we have worked closely with conference organizers to support this aspect as well, sponsoring conference parties and other activities in addition to the learning aspect.
Cloud Deployment and Linux
Historically, TX Text Control has been built on Windows with deep integration at lower levels to provide the true WYSIWYG rendering that makes TX Text Control unique. There is a clear path to platform independence with ASP.NET Core and .NET. Just by taking a look at Microsoft Azure, you can see that Linux is the most commonly used platform for web applications. We saw this trend and started porting essential parts of our components for platform independence. We migrated the core of TX Text Control to native, fast and efficient DLLs, and moved the internal rendering to the platform-independent SVG format.
In 2024, we will release our first cross-platform version of TX Text Control .NET Server for ASP.NET that will run on both Windows and Linux. As a result, TX Text Control can be used on Azure in App Services, Azure Functions, Linux Docker Containers, and other platform-independent services. With no dependencies on System.Drawing or any Windows-only components, we are very proud to make our sophisticated technology available to a larger developer community. The first product that will be available for both platforms is our ASP.NET version, but based on our new rendering technology, we are not limited to server applications. Anything is possible and we are ready to face the future with confidence.
Thank you!
Thanks to all users, friends, partners and Text Control team members for a fantastic year.
Thank you for making 2023 an unforgettable one. Your feedback, your loyalty, and your partnership have been invaluable, and we can't wait to embark on a new year with you.
Happy coding!
