Edit

What's new in Azure Form Recognizer

  • Article
  • 31 minutes to read

This article applies to: Form Recognizer v2.1 checkmark Form Recognizer v3.0. Form Recognizer v2.1 checkmark Form Recognizer v2.1.

Form Recognizer service is updated on an ongoing basis. Bookmark this page to stay up to date with release notes, feature enhancements, and our newest documentation.

Note

With the release of the 2022-08-31 GA API, the associated preview APIs are being deprecated. If you are using the 2021-09-30-preview or the 2022-01-30-preview API versions, please update your applications to target the 2022-08-31 API version. There are a few minor changes involved, for more information, see the migration guide.

March 2023

Important

2023-02-28-preview capabilities are currently only available in the following regions:

  • West Europe
  • West US2
  • East US
  • Custom classification model is a new capability within Form Recognizer starting with the 2023-02-28-preview API. Try the document classification capability using the Form Recognizer Studio or the REST API.
  • Query fields capabilities, added to the General Document model, use Azure OpenAI models to extract specific fields from documents. Try the General documents with query fields feature using the Form Recognizer Studio. Query fields are currently only active for resources in the East US region.
  • Read and Layout models support barcode extraction with the 2023-02-28-preview API.
  • Add-on capabilities
  • Common name key normalization capabilities are added to the General Document model to improve processing forms with variations in key names.
  • Custom extraction model updates
    • Custom neural model now supports added languages for training and analysis. Train neural models for Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
    • Custom template model now has an improved signature detection capability.
  • Form Recognizer Studio updates
    • In addition to support for all the new features like classification and query fields, the Studio now enables project sharing for custom model projects.
    • New model additions in gated preview: Vaccination cards, Contracts, US Tax 1098, US Tax 1098-E, and US Tax 1095-T. To request access to gated preview models, complete and submit the Form Recognizer private preview request form.
  • Receipt model updates
    • Receipt model has added support for thermal receipts.
    • Receipt model now has added language support for 18 languages and three language dialects (English, French, Portuguese).
    • Receipt model now supports TaxDetails extraction.
  • Layout model now has improved table recognition.
  • Read model now has added improvement for single-digit character recognition.

February 2023

January 2023

  • Prebuilt receipt model - added languages supported. The receipt model now supports these added languages and locales

    • Japanese - Japan (ja-JP)
    • French - Canada (fr-CA)
    • Dutch - Netherlands (nl-NL)
    • English - United Arab Emirates (en-AE)
    • Portuguese - Brazil (pt-BR)

  • Prebuilt invoice model - added languages supported. The invoice model now supports these added languages and locales

    • English - United States (en-US), Australia (en-AU), Canada (en-CA), United Kingdom (en-UK), India (en-IN)
    • Spanish - Spain (es-ES)
    • French - France (fr-FR)
    • Italian - Italy (it-IT)
    • Portuguese - Portugal (pt-PT)
    • Dutch - Netherlands (nl-NL)

  • Prebuilt invoice model - added fields recognized. The invoice model now recognizes these added fields

    • Currency code
    • Payment options
    • Total discount
    • Tax items (en-IN only)

  • Prebuilt ID model - added document types supported. The ID model now supports these added document types

    • US Military ID

Tip

All January 2023 updates are available with REST API version 2022-08-31 (GA).

  • Prebuilt receipt model—additional language support:

    The prebuilt receipt model now has added support for the following languages:

    • English - United Arab Emirates (en-AE)
    • Dutch - Netherlands (nl-NL)
    • French - Canada (fr-CA)
    • German - (de-DE)
    • Italian - (it-IT)
    • Japanese - Japan (ja-JP)
    • Portuguese - Brazil (pt-BR)

  • Prebuilt invoice model—additional language support and field extractions

    The prebuilt invoice model now has added support for the following languages:

    • English - Australia (en-AU), Canada (en-CA), United Kingdom (en-UK), India (en-IN)
    • Portuguese - Brazil (pt-BR)

    The prebuilt invoice model now has added support for the following field extractions:

    • Currency code
    • Payment options
    • Total discount
    • Tax items (en-IN only)

  • Prebuilt ID document model—additional document types support

    The prebuilt ID document model now has added support for the following document types:

    • Driver's license expansion supporting India, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia
    • US military ID cards and documents
    • India ID cards and documents (PAN and Aadhaar)
    • Australia ID cards and documents (photo card, Key-pass ID)
    • Canada ID cards and documents (identification card, Maple card)
    • United Kingdom ID cards and documents (national identity card)

December 2022

  • Form Recognizer Studio updates

    The December Form Recognizer Studio release includes the latest updates to Form Recognizer Studio. There are significant improvements to user experience, primarily with custom model labeling support.

    • Page range. The Studio now supports analyzing specified pages from a document.

    • Custom model labeling:

      • Run Layout API automatically. You can opt to run the Layout API for all documents automatically in your blob storage during the setup process for custom model.

      • Search. The Studio now includes search functionality to locate words within a document. This improvement allows for easier navigation while labeling.

      • Navigation. You can select labels to target labeled words within a document.

      • Auto table labeling. After you select the table icon within a document, you can opt to autolabel the extracted table in the labeling view.

      • Label subtypes and second-level subtypes The Studio now supports subtypes for table columns, table rows, and second-level subtypes for types such as dates and numbers.

  • Building custom neural models is now supported in the US Gov Virginia region.

  • Preview API versions 2022-01-30-preview and 2021-09-30-preview will be retired January 31 2023. Update to the 2022-08-31 API version to avoid any service disruptions.

November 2022

  • Announcing the latest stable release of Azure Form Recognizer libraries
    • This release includes important changes and updates for .NET, Java, JavaScript, and Python SDKs. For more information, see Azure SDK DevBlog.
    • The most significant enhancements are the introduction of two new clients, the DocumentAnalysisClient and the DocumentModelAdministrationClient.

October 2022

  • Form Recognizer versioned content

    • Form Recognizer documentation has been updated to present a versioned experience. Now, you can choose to view content targeting the v3.0 GA experience or the v2.1 GA experience. The v3.0 experience is the default.

      Screenshot of the Form Recognizer landing page denoting the version dropdown menu.

  • Form Recognizer Studio Sample Code

    • Sample code for the Form Recognizer Studio labeling experience is now available on GitHub. Customers can develop and integrate Form Recognizer into their own UX or build their own new UX using the Form Recognizer Studio sample code.

  • Language expansion

    • With the latest preview release, Form Recognizer's Read (OCR), Layout, and Custom template models support 134 new languages. These language additions include Greek, Latvian, Serbian, Thai, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese, along with several Latin and Cyrillic languages. Form Recognizer now has a total of 299 supported languages across the most recent GA and new preview versions. Refer to the supported languages page to see all supported languages.
    • Use the REST API parameter api-version=2022-06-30-preview when using the API or the corresponding SDK to support the new languages in your applications.

  • New Prebuilt Contract model

    • A new prebuilt that extracts information from contracts such as parties, title, contract ID, execution date and more. the contracts model is currently in preview, request access here.

  • Region expansion for training custom neural models

    • Training custom neural models now supported in added regions.
      • East US
      • East US2
      • US Gov Arizona

September 2022

Note

Starting with version 4.0.0, a new set of clients has been introduced to leverage the newest features of the Form Recognizer service.

SDK version 4.0.0 GA release includes the following updates:

  • Version 4.0.0 GA (2022-09-08)
  • Supports REST API v3.0 and v2.0 clients

Package (NuGet)

Changelog/Release History

Migration guide

ReadMe

Samples

  • Region expansion for training custom neural models now supported in six new regions

    • Australia East
    • Central US
    • East Asia
    • France Central
    • UK South
    • West US2

    • For a complete list of regions where training is supported see custom neural models.

    • Form Recognizer SDK version 4.0.0 GA release

      • Form Recognizer SDKs version 4.0.0 (.NET/C#, Java, JavaScript) and version 3.2.0 (Python) are generally available and ready for use in production applications!
      • For more information on Form Recognizer SDKs, see the SDK overview.
      • Update your applications using your programming language's migration guide.

August 2022

Form Recognizer SDK beta August 2022 preview release includes the following updates:

Version 4.0.0-beta.5 (2022-08-09)

Changelog/Release History

Package (NuGet)

SDK reference documentation

  • Form Recognizer v3.0 generally available

    • Form Recognizer REST API v3.0 is now generally available and ready for use in production applications! Update your applications with REST API version 2022-08-31.

  • Form Recognizer Studio updates

    • Next steps. Under each model page, the Studio now has a next steps section. Users can quickly reference sample code, troubleshooting guidelines, and pricing information.
    • Custom models. The Studio now includes the ability to reorder labels in custom model projects to improve labeling efficiency.
    • Copy Models Custom models can be copied across Form Recognizer services from within the Studio. The operation enables the promotion of a trained model to other environments and regions.
    • Delete documents. The Studio now supports deleting documents from labeled dataset within custom projects.

  • Form Recognizer service updates

    • prebuilt-read. Read OCR model is now also available in Form Recognizer with paragraphs and language detection as the two new features. Form Recognizer Read targets advanced document scenarios aligned with the broader document intelligence capabilities in Form Recognizer.
    • prebuilt-layout. The Layout model extracts paragraphs and whether the extracted text is a paragraph, title, section heading, footnote, page header, page footer, or page number.
    • prebuilt-invoice. The TotalVAT and Line/VAT fields now resolves to the existing fields TotalTax and Line/Tax respectively.
    • prebuilt-idDocument. Data extraction support for US state ID, social security, and green cards. Support for passport visa information.
    • prebuilt-receipt. Expanded locale support for French (fr-FR), Spanish (es-ES), Portuguese (pt-PT), Italian (it-IT) and German (de-DE).
    • prebuilt-businessCard. Address parsing support to extract subfields for address components like address, city, state, country, and zip code.

  • AI quality improvements

    • prebuilt-read. Enhanced support for single characters, handwritten dates, amounts, names, other key data commonly found in receipts and invoices and improved processing of digital PDF documents.
    • prebuilt-layout. Support for better detection of cropped tables, borderless tables, and improved recognition of long spanning cells.
    • prebuilt-document. Improved value and check box detection.
    • custom-neural. Improved accuracy for table detection and extraction.

June 2022

  • Form Recognizer SDK beta June 2022 preview release includes the following updates:

February 2022

  • Form Recognizer v3.0 preview release introduces several new features, capabilities and enhancements:

    • Custom neural model or custom document model is a new custom model to extract text and selection marks from structured forms, semi-structured and unstructured documents.
    • W-2 prebuilt model is a new prebuilt model to extract fields from W-2 forms for tax reporting and income verification scenarios.
    • Read API extracts printed text lines, words, text locations, detected languages, and handwritten text, if detected.
    • General document pretrained model is now updated to support selection marks in addition to API text, tables, structure, and key-value pairs from forms and documents.
    • Invoice API Invoice prebuilt model expands support to Spanish invoices.
    • Form Recognizer Studio adds new demos for Read, W2, Hotel receipt samples, and support for training the new custom neural models.
    • Language Expansion Form Recognizer Read, Layout, and Custom Form add support for 42 new languages including Arabic, Hindi, and other languages using Arabic and Devanagari scripts to expand the coverage to 164 languages. Handwritten language support expands to Japanese and Korean.

  • Get started with the new REST API, Python, or .NET SDK for the v3.0 preview API.

  • Form Recognizer model data extraction

    Model Text extraction Key-Value pairs Selection Marks Tables Signatures
    Read ✓
    General document ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
    Layout ✓ ✓ ✓
    Invoice ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
    Receipt ✓ ✓ ✓
    ID document ✓ ✓
    Business card ✓ ✓
    Custom template ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
    Custom neural ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

  • Form Recognizer SDK beta preview release includes the following updates:

November 2021

  • Form Recognizer v3.0 preview SDK release update (beta.2) incorporates bug fixes and minor feature updates.

October 2021

  • Form Recognizer v3.0 preview release version 4.0.0-beta.1 (2021-10-07)introduces several new features and capabilities:

    • General document model is a new API that uses a pretrained model to extract text, tables, structure, and key-value pairs from forms and documents.

    • Hotel receipt model added to prebuilt receipt processing.

    • Expanded fields for ID document the ID model supports endorsements, restrictions, and vehicle classification extraction from US driver's licenses.

    • Signature field is a new field type in custom forms to detect the presence of a signature in a form field.

    • Language Expansion Support for 122 languages (print) and 7 languages (handwritten). Form Recognizer Layout and Custom Form expand supported languages to 122 with its latest preview. The preview includes text extraction for print text in 49 new languages including Russian, Bulgarian, and other Cyrillic and more Latin languages. In addition extraction of handwritten text now supports seven languages that include English, and new previews of Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

    • Tables and text extraction enhancements Layout now supports extracting single row tables also called key-value tables. Text extraction enhancements include better processing of digital PDFs and Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) text in identity documents, along with general performance.

    • Form Recognizer Studio To simplify use of the service, you can now access the Form Recognizer Studio to test the different prebuilt models or label and train a custom model

    • Get started with the new REST API, Python, or .NET SDK for the v3.0 preview API.

  • Form Recognizer model data extraction

    Model Text extraction Key-Value pairs Selection Marks Tables
    General document ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
    Layout ✓ ✓ ✓
    Invoice ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
    Receipt ✓ ✓
    ID document ✓ ✓
    Business card ✓ ✓
    Custom ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

September 2021

  • Azure metrics explorer advanced features are available on your Form Recognizer resource overview page in the Azure portal.

  • Monitoring menu

    Screenshot showing the monitoring menu in the Azure portal

  • Charts

    Screenshot showing an example metric chart in the Azure portal.

  • ID document model update: given names including a suffix, with or without a period (full stop), process successfully:

    Input Text Result with update
    William Isaac Kirby Jr. FirstName: William Isaac

    LastName: Kirby Jr.
    Henry Caleb Ross Sr FirstName: Henry Caleb

    LastName: Ross Sr

July 2021

  • System-assigned managed identity support: You can now enable a system-assigned managed identity to grant Form Recognizer limited access to private storage accounts including accounts protected by a Virtual Network (VNet) or firewall or have enabled bring-your-own-storage (BYOS). See Create and use managed identity for your Form Recognizer resource to learn more.

June 2021

May 2021

  • Form Recognizer 2.1 is generally available. The GA release marks the stability of the changes introduced in prior 2.1 preview package versions. This release enables you to detect and extract information and data from the following document types:

  • To get started, try the Form Recognizer Sample Tool and follow the quickstart.

  • The updated Layout API table feature adds header recognition with column headers that can span multiple rows. Each table cell has an attribute that indicates whether it's part of a header or not. This update can be used to identify which rows make up the table header.

April 2021

  • *NuGet package version 3.1.0-beta.4

  • Changelog/Release History

  • New methods to analyze data from identity documents:

    StartRecognizeIdDocumentsFromUriAsync

    StartRecognizeIdDocumentsAsync

    For a list of field values, see Fields extracted in our Form Recognizer documentation.

  • Expanded the set of document languages that can be provided to the StartRecognizeContent method.

  • New property Pages supported by the following classes:

    RecognizeBusinessCardsOptions
    RecognizeCustomFormsOptions
    RecognizeInvoicesOptions
    RecognizeReceiptsOptions

    The Pages property allows you to select individual or a range of pages for multi-page PDF and TIFF documents. For individual pages, enter the page number, for example, 3. For a range of pages (like page 2 and pages 5-7) enter the p age numbers and ranges separated by commas: 2, 5-7.

  • New property ReadingOrder supported for the following class:

    RecognizeContentOptions

    The ReadingOrder property is an optional parameter that allows you to specify which reading order algorithm—basic or natural—should be applied to order the extraction of text elements. If not specified, the default value is basic.

  • SDK preview updates for API version 2.1-preview.3 introduces feature updates and enhancements.

March 2021

Form Recognizer v2.1 public preview v2.1-preview.3 has been released and includes the following features:

  • New prebuilt ID model The new prebuilt ID model enables customers to take IDs and return structured data to automate processing. It combines our powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities with ID understanding models to extract key information from passports and U.S. driver licenses.

    Learn more about the prebuilt ID model

    Screenshot of a sample passport.

  • Line-item extraction for invoice model - Prebuilt Invoice model now supports line item extraction; it now extracts full items and their parts - description, amount, quantity, product ID, date and more. With a simple API/SDK call, you can extract useful data from your invoices - text, table, key-value pairs, and line items.

    Learn more about the invoice model

  • Supervised table labeling and training, empty-value labeling - In addition to Form Recognizer's state-of-the-art deep learning automatic table extraction capabilities, it now enables customers to label and train on tables. This new release includes the ability to label and train on line items/tables (dynamic and fixed) and train a custom model to extract key-value pairs and line items. Once a model is trained, the model extracts line items as part of the JSON output in the documentResults section.

    Screenshot of the table labeling feature.

    In addition to labeling tables, you can now label empty values and regions. If some documents in your training set don't have values for certain fields, you can label them so that your model knows to extract values properly from analyzed documents.

  • Support for 66 new languages - The Layout API and Custom Models for Form Recognizer now support 73 languages.

    Learn more about Form Recognizer's language support

  • Natural reading order, handwriting classification, and page selection - With this update, you can choose to get the text line outputs in the natural reading order instead of the default left-to-right and top-to-bottom ordering. Use the new readingOrder query parameter and set it to "natural" value for a more human-friendly reading order output. In addition, for Latin languages, Form Recognizer classifies text lines as handwritten style or not and give a confidence score.

  • Prebuilt receipt model quality improvements This update includes many quality improvements for the prebuilt Receipt model, especially around line item extraction.

November 2020

  • Form Recognizer v2.1-preview.2 has been released and includes the following features:

    • New prebuilt invoice model - The new prebuilt Invoice model enables customers to take invoices in various formats and return structured data to automate the invoice processing. It combines our powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities with invoice understanding deep learning models to extract key information from invoices in English. It extracts key text, tables, and information such as customer, vendor, invoice ID, invoice due date, total, amount due, tax amount, ship to, and bill to.

      Learn more about the prebuilt invoice model

      Screenshot of a sample invoice.

    • Enhanced table extraction - Form Recognizer now provides enhanced table extraction, which combines our powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities with a deep learning table extraction model. Form Recognizer can extract data from tables, including complex tables with merged columns, rows, no borders and more.

      Screenshot of tables analysis.

      Learn more about Layout extraction

    • Client library update - The latest versions of the client libraries for .NET, Python, Java, and JavaScript support the Form Recognizer 2.1 API.

    • New language supported: Japanese - The following new languages are now supported: for AnalyzeLayout and AnalyzeCustomForm: Japanese (ja). Language support

    • Text line style indication (handwritten/other) (Latin languages only) - Form Recognizer now outputs an appearance object classifying whether each text line is handwritten style or not, along with a confidence score. This feature is supported only for Latin languages.

    • Quality improvements - Extraction improvements including single digit extraction improvements.

    • New try-it-out feature in the Form Recognizer Sample and Labeling Tool - Ability to try out prebuilt Invoice, Receipt, and Business Card models and the Layout API using the Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool. See how your data is extracted without writing any code.

    • Try the Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool

      Screenshot of the Sample Labeling tool homepage.

      • Feedback Loop - When Analyzing files via the Sample Labeling tool you can now also add it to the training set and adjust the labels if necessary and train to improve the model.
      • Auto Label Documents - Automatically labels added documents based on previous labeled documents in the project.

August 2020

  • **Form Recognizer v2.1-preview.1 has been released and includes the following features:

    • REST API reference is available - View the v2.1-preview.1 reference
    • New languages supported In addition to English, the following languages are now supported: for Layout and Train Custom Model: English (en), Chinese (Simplified) (zh-Hans), Dutch (nl), French (fr), German (de), Italian (it), Portuguese (pt) and Spanish (es).
    • Checkbox / Selection Mark detection – Form Recognizer supports detection and extraction of selection marks such as check boxes and radio buttons. Selection Marks are extracted in Layout and you can now also label and train in Train Custom Model - Train with Labels to extract key-value pairs for selection marks.
    • Model Compose - allows multiple models to be composed and called with a single model ID. When you submit a document to be analyzed with a composed model ID, a classification step is first performed to route it to the correct custom model. Model Compose is available for Train Custom Model - Train with labels.
    • Model name - add a friendly name to your custom models for easier management and tracking.
    • New prebuilt model for Business Cards for extracting common fields in English, language business cards.
    • New locales for prebuilt Receipts in addition to EN-US, support is now available for EN-AU, EN-CA, EN-GB, EN-IN
    • Quality improvements for Layout, Train Custom Model - Train without Labels and Train with Labels.

  • v2.0 includes the following update:

    • The client libraries for NET, Python, Java, and JavaScript have entered General Availability.

    New samples are available on GitHub.

    • The Knowledge Extraction Recipes - Forms Playbook collects best practices from real Form Recognizer customer engagements and provides usable code samples, checklists, and sample pipelines used in developing these projects.
    • The Sample Labeling tool has been updated to support the new v2.1 functionality. See this quickstart for getting started with the tool.
    • The Intelligent Kiosk Form Recognizer sample shows how to integrate Analyze Receipt and Train Custom Model - Train without Labels.

July 2020

  • Form Recognizer v2.0 reference available - View the v2.0 API Reference and the updated SDKs for .NET, Python, Java, and JavaScript.

    • Table enhancements and Extraction enhancements - includes accuracy improvements and table extractions enhancements, specifically, the capability to learn tables headers and structures in custom train without labels.

    • Currency support - Detection and extraction of global currency symbols.

    • Azure Gov - Form Recognizer is now also available in Azure Gov.

    • Enhanced security features:

      • Bring your own key - Form Recognizer automatically encrypts your data when persisted to the cloud to protect it and to help you to meet your organizational security and compliance commitments. By default, your subscription uses Microsoft-managed encryption keys. You can now also manage your subscription with your own encryption keys. Customer-managed keys, also known as bring your own key (BYOK), offer greater flexibility to create, rotate, disable, and revoke access controls. You can also audit the encryption keys used to protect your data.
      • Private endpoints – Enables you on a virtual network to securely access data over a Private Link.

June 2020

April 2020

  • SDK support for Form Recognizer API v2.0 Public Preview - This month we expanded our service support to include a preview SDK for Form Recognizer v2.0 release. Use these links to get started with your language of choice:
  • .NET SDK
  • Java SDK
  • Python SDK
  • JavaScript SDK

The new SDK supports all the features of the v2.0 REST API for Form Recognizer. You can share your feedback on the SDKs through the SDK Feedback form.

  • Copy Custom Model You can now copy models between regions and subscriptions using the new Copy Custom Model feature. Before invoking the Copy Custom Model API, you must first obtain authorization to copy into the target resource. This authorization is secured by calling the Copy Authorization operation against the target resource endpoint.

  • Generate a copy authorization REST API

  • Copy a custom model REST API

  • Security improvements

  • Customer-Managed Keys are now available for FormRecognizer. For more information, see Data encryption at rest for Form Recognizer.

  • Use Managed Identities for access to Azure resources with Azure Active Directory. For more information, see Authorize access to managed identities.

March 2020

  • Value types for labeling You can now specify the types of values you're labeling with the Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool. The following value types and variations are currently supported:
  • string
    • default, no-whitespaces, alphanumeric
  • number
    • default, currency
  • date
    • default, dmy, mdy, ymd
  • time
  • integer

See the Sample Labeling tool guide to learn how to use this feature.

  • Table visualization The Sample Labeling tool now displays tables that were recognized in the document. This feature lets you view recognized and extracted tables from the document prior to labeling and analyzing. This feature can be toggled on/off using the layers option.

  • The following image is an example of how tables are recognized and extracted:

    Screenshot of table visualization using the Sample Labeling tool.

  • The extracted tables are available in the JSON output under "pageResults".

    Important

    Labeling tables isn't supported. If tables are not recognized and extracted automatically, you can only label them as key/value pairs. When labeling tables as key/value pairs, label each cell as a unique value.

  • Extraction enhancements

  • This release includes extraction enhancements and accuracy improvements, specifically, the capability to label and extract multiple key/value pairs in the same line of text.

  • Sample Labeling tool is now open-source

  • The Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool is now available as an open-source project. You can integrate it within your solutions and make customer-specific changes to meet your needs.

  • For more information about the Form Recognizer Sample Labeling tool, review the documentation available on GitHub.

  • TLS 1.2 enforcement

  • TLS 1.2 is now enforced for all HTTP requests to this service. For more information, see Azure Cognitive Services security.

January 2020

This release introduces the Form Recognizer 2.0. In the next sections, you'll find more information about new features, enhancements, and changes.

  • New features

    • Custom model

      • Train with labels You can now train a custom model with manually labeled data. This method results in better-performing models and can produce models that work with complex forms or forms containing values without keys.
      • Asynchronous API You can use async API calls to train with and analyze large data sets and files.
      • TIFF file support You can now train with and extract data from TIFF documents.
      • Extraction accuracy improvements

    • Prebuilt receipt model

      • Tip amounts You can now extract tip amounts and other handwritten values.
      • Line item extraction You can extract line item values from receipts.
      • Confidence values You can view the model's confidence for each extracted value.
      • Extraction accuracy improvements

    • Layout extraction You can now use the Layout API to extract text data and table data from your forms.

  • Custom model API changes

    All of the APIs for training and using custom models have been renamed, and some synchronous methods are now asynchronous. The following are major changes:

    • The process of training a model is now asynchronous. You initiate training through the /custom/models API call. This call returns an operation ID, which you can pass into custom/models/{modelID} to return the training results.
    • Key/value extraction is now initiated by the /custom/models/{modelID}/analyze API call. This call returns an operation ID, which you can pass into custom/models/{modelID}/analyzeResults/{resultID} to return the extraction results.
    • Operation IDs for the Train operation are now found in the Location header of HTTP responses, not the Operation-Location header.

  • Receipt API changes

    • The APIs for reading sales receipts have been renamed.

    • Receipt data extraction is now initiated by the /prebuilt/receipt/analyze API call. This call returns an operation ID, which you can pass into /prebuilt/receipt/analyzeResults/{resultID} to return the extraction results.

  • Output format changes

    • The JSON responses for all API calls have new formats. Some keys and values have been added, removed, or renamed. See the quickstarts for examples of the current JSON formats.

Next steps