Spreadsheets remain a standard tool for many organizations, and despite increasing adoption across cell-based competitors such as Google Sheets, Excel still owns the market. As noted by research firm Robert Half, while the use of XLSX formats is on a slow decline, almost 70 percent of finance firms say Excel remains their spreadsheet software of choice.

Fundamentally, this comes down to familiarity; 62 percent of users surveyed find this common format easy to use, making it their go-to option when entering financial data or performing quick calculations. The only problem with this is that this spreadsheet tool introduces significant security issues. According to recent Cisco data, 38 percent of the most prevalent, malicious file extensions use Microsoft Office file formats — including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel — to compromise corporate networks.

Accusoft is now offering a more secure, web-based solution for spreadsheet needs. PrizmDoc Cells offers a web-based spreadsheet viewing and editing alternative that makes it possible for independent software vendors (ISVs) to easily incorporate XLSX functions into corporate applications without increasing security risk. Here’s how the newest part of the PrizmDoc Suite can help companies streamline processes while maintaining security.

Web-Based Spreadsheet Security

Common spreadsheet practices come with significant risk. As noted by ZDNet, for example, a new malware group is using the Excel file format that creates malicious spreadsheets that bypass security scanners and — thanks in large part to their format familiarity — are opened by end-users. This creates a self-sustaining problem. With single-source spreadsheets still the norm for many financial firms, attackers just need to spoof corporate email addresses and attach familiar XLSX files to compromise corporate networks.

For ISVs, this presents an opportunity. The market needs a secure way to view and edit spreadsheets in-browser and they need to be able to control the way the formulas are viewed and manipulated. By delivering browser-based spreadsheet viewers and editors within their own applications, ISVs can streamline their clients’ processes while maintaining security and controlling data sharing. PrizmDoc Cells integrates with ISV’s applications to enable easy spreadsheet viewing and editing functions. This integration allows administrators to lock down spreadsheet access by making them read-only or disallowing downloads, while also permitting protected sharing so that users can perform calculations without compromising the original source.

Value-Added Version Control

Collaboration is critical for effective spreadsheet use, especially among highly regulated industries like finance. From sharing key data around lending, credit, or investment applications to completing profit and loss calculations, spreadsheets remain a staple of efficient and effective financial transactions.

As with any industry, version control is a challenge for any third-party file collaboration. As noted by Beta News, the still-popular process of downloading spreadsheets to end-user devices comes with multiple versioning issues, including:

• Loss of Visibility — When files are downloaded onto end-user devices, information security teams naturally lose sight of how information is used, changed, or shared. Not only does this make it impossible to deliver consistent version control, but it puts organizations at risk of regulatory non-compliance.
• Data Discrepancies — Once data is downloaded, it is instantly out-of-date. Replicated across multiple users, this scenario creates substantial subsets of data that are all slightly different and require significant analytical effort to create some semblance of reliable version control.

When an ISV integrates PrizmDoc Cells within their application, the functionality reduces version control challenges by allowing spreadsheet owners to remove visibility into underlying logic, such as proprietary business formulas or calculations, as required. It also eliminates the need for client-side installs or downloads, which adds another level of security for comprehensive version control.

Reducing Human Error in Spreadsheets

Errors remain a common spreadsheet concern. As noted by Computer Weekly, “Several research studies have found that up to 70% of spreadsheets contain errors which would result in serious miscalculations.” This creates both productivity and security risks. If calculations create inaccurate outputs, organizations may find themselves struggling to find the source of equation issues or computation concerns. If the problem persists, staff may share the affected spreadsheet in hopes of quickly finding a resolution, in turn potentially exposing documents to increased risk.

PrizmDoc Cells solves this problem with browser-based spreadsheet viewing and editing functionalities. Files display as they would in native applications but can be embedded across any website, CMS, intranet, or portal, allowing staff to securely view and manipulate spreadsheets based on permissions. While it’s impossible to eliminate the potential for formula or format issues, it’s imperative to keep data safe in a secure environment, and sharing these spreadsheets securely makes finding and solving any error more efficient.

A Secure Browser-Based Spreadsheet & XLSX Integration

Excel-based spreadsheets cannot stand up to the security and data sharing needs that companies need to scale. When it comes to sharing sensitive data and manipulating formulas, there is both complexity and corporate risk. Without the right permissions and controls in place, data could easily be misrepresented, costing the company revenue.

With PrizmDoc Cells, ISVs can provide the capabilities end-users need for secure spreadsheet viewing and editing. With the ability to independently import, edit, and export XLSX files, securely embed spreadsheet data anywhere, reduce error rates with secure collaboration, and streamline version control, it’s worth opening the door to new spreadsheets capabilities. Discover the next generation of spreadsheet solutions. Try PrizmDoc Cells today.

Powerful patient portals are now essential for healthcare organizations to deliver high-quality care, even at a distance. Despite advancements around functionality, however, challenges remain. As noted by Healthcare Info Security, many healthcare providers still struggle with providing solutions to patients in an easily accessible portal that provides the security they require by law.

Here, HIPAA compliance is critical. Healthcare organizations need portal solutions that deliver valuable information without undermining regulatory requirements around data security and handling. Creating innovative, secure patient portals demands HIPAA-compliant tools that deliver advanced viewing and redaction tools while keeping privacy in practice.

The State of Healthcare Security

Security remains a problem for healthcare organizations as attackers ramp up efforts to access private patient and operational information. The healthcare industry saw more than 41 million records breached in 2019 and new attack vectors are now emerging as hackers look to leverage pandemic pressures and breach corporate security. It’s no surprise, then, that last year saw 28,261 HIPAA complaints, the highest number ever recorded, as organizations deployed more user-friendly technology and attackers looked to capitalize on potential weaknesses.

Ramping up security in patient portals and meeting emerging patient needs is a priority for organizations. Accusoft’s PrizmDoc Cloud, a HIPAA compliant solution, is capable of offering user-friendly portal capabilities inside your own secure application. The right combination of existing technology and cloud-based application programming interfaces (APIs) can take your patient portal to the next level. Let’s break down five key cloud-based APIs that can help patient portals deliver on practical potential.

Robust Document Viewing with PrizmDoc Cloud API

Effective medical care depends on documents. From patient consent forms to test results and referrals from other healthcare practices, documents form the core of custom-built treatment plans. While the transition to electronic health records (EHRs) has helped reduce the complexity and confusion that comes with paper-based processes, this digital transition has introduced the challenge of document diversity. 

From typical Word documents to Excel spreadsheets and scanned images of handwritten forms, patients need the ability to access documents on-demand, while healthcare organizations must ensure that patient access options are both secure and HIPAA-compliant.

The PrizmDoc HTML5 Document Viewing API offers document and image viewing while also streamlining the process with key features including:

• Responsive Web UI — Patients and staff can easily view documents and images that are scaled to fit their tablet, laptop, or mobile phone.
• Configurable Controls — Organizations can easily enable or disable tabs, localization, rendering options, and encryption within their patient portal.
• Microsoft Office (MSO) Conversion — Healthcare agencies can integrate true native viewing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

Reliable PII Redaction

Data privacy is paramount for HIPAA compliance. As noted by Managed Healthcare Executive, this is especially critical in the world of COVID-19. With telehealth now the “new normal” — and likely to continue long after the pandemic subsides — organizations must ensure that protection of personally identifiable information (PII) remains intact.

While robust encryption and identity access management (IAM) tools form part of this function, redaction is another critical aspect. Consider the case of children. As noted by the Health Info Security piece, although parents typically have complete access to the medical records of children under 12, PII for those between the ages of 13 and 18 — such as mental health records — may be restricted. For healthcare agencies, this requires patient portal solutions that allow parents access to some data while also protecting specific PII. Here, robust redaction APIs that allow organizations to obfuscate key information are critical to meet regulatory requirements without compromising ease-of-access.

Regulated Image Compression

Images form a critical component of effective patient prognosis and treatment plans, and while DICOM files used in high-fidelity imaging are often a priority for medical agencies, there’s also a need for image compression solutions that enable the portability of more common image types such as JPEGs.

Consider the simple case of patient identification. By attaching high-quality photos to patient records, medical staff are better equipped to ensure the individual they’re assisting — virtually or in-person — is the patient linked to the account. High-quality JPEG photos are also useful to record and track the progress of specific physical ailments over time. Cloud-based image compression APIs streamline this process with the ability to compress individual or multiple files, set desired quality, remove metadata, and set JPEG mode output.

Rapid File Conversion

Complexity remains a challenge for healthcare records management. As patients visit general practitioners (GPs) and specialists, data volumes rapidly increase, in turn making it difficult for doctors to find specific information and create comprehensive treatment plans.

Multi-file combination and conversion to popular formats such as PDF helps solve this problem — not only can healthcare staff create files that are easily viewed by doctors and patients alike but administrators can also set key permissions around editing, annotating, and printing to ensure information remains secure. File format conversion with PrizmDoc Cloud APIs can help enhance patient portals with key features including:

• Easy combination of multiple files into single PDFs
• Data security with optional password protection
• Specific section or entire file conversion
• Searchable output formats

Relevant Watermarking

Last on our list of patient portal APIs is watermarking. By labeling key documents with unique healthcare watermarks, organizations can both improve front-line security and enhance HIPAA compliance. By training staff to only accept and process watermarked images and documents, companies can reduce the risk of potential compromise. If attackers attempt to spoof or modify key documents they can be easily detected because they won’t carry corporate watermarks. These marks also form a key component of auditing and data tracking if healthcare agencies are evaluated for HIPAA compliance by providing a visible chain of custody around document creation, storage, and access. 

User-friendly patient portals are critical for healthcare companies to survive in the “new normal” — and embrace what comes next. But speedy access requires a robust security balance; document viewing, redaction, compression, conversion, and watermarking APIs from Accusoft can deliver privacy in practice and capitalize on patient portal potential.  Try PrizmDoc Cloud API.

Accusoft’s ImageGear is a powerful image processing SDK integration that allows software developers to give their applications the ability to open, convert, and transform multiple image file formats. Given the complexity of image processing tasks, turning to a comprehensive SDK can save significant time and headaches in the software development cycle. Rather than building image manipulation features from scratch or seeking out multiple open source solutions for every processing need, developers can use ImageGear to add image processing essentials and whatever capabilities they need to keep their project on schedule.

8 Essential ImageGear Features

ImageGear delivers several noteworthy capabilities that are worth highlighting for developers looking to add image processing features to their applications. Here are a few of the most essential:

1. General Use Tools

Although ImageGear delivers a wide range of advanced image processing capabilities, it also provides a variety of conventional tools for image modification. Developers often incorporate these features into their application’s viewing interface, which allows users to easily alter images as needed. Some of the more commonly used tools include:

• Image cropping 
• Image rotation and resizing
• Thumbnail creation
• Sharpening/smoothing filters
• Contrast adjustment/gamma correction
• Red eye removal

2. Region of Interest Selection

Using ImageGear’s region of interest (ROI) features, it’s possible to create a freely shaped image area that can be targeted for additional processing. The ROI can be an ellipse or polygon shape, or it can be drawn freehand. Marking a specified area creates a 1-bit mask image to indicate which pixels will be affected by image processing algorithms.

3. Erosion/Dilation

ImageGear deploys mathematical morphology operations to help clean up and enhance binary images. Erosion works by removing layers of pixels from the inner and outer boundaries of defined regions in the foreground. This causes the white pixels in the foreground to shrink, which has the effect of making the area darker. Dilation performs the opposite function, increasing the boundaries of those same pixels to make the image region lighter. These functions are typically deployed in combination to remove objects or smooth borders on black and white or grayscale images.

4. Edge Detection

A key image processing capability, edge detection is used in pattern recognition, image matching, and 3D vision applications to identify the boundaries of objects within images. This function is particularly useful for image segmentation and data extraction tasks.

5. Speckle Removal

Speckling is the distinctive “salt and pepper” noise commonly found in many scanned or low resolution images. ImageGear has two different ways of removing speckles from an image to reduce noise and improve the overall quality without blurring details.

• Despeckle Method: Removes color noise from a 1-bit image by finding the average color value within the ROI and replacing the other pixels in the speckle area with this value.
• GeomDespeckle Method: Uses the Crimmins complementary hulling algorithm, which sends the image through a geometric filter that reduces speckle noise without compromising the edges of the original image.

6. ImageClean

The ImageClean function is a multi-faceted cleanup tool that uses several classes to perform common image processing tasks. Some of those tasks include:

• Inverting white text or auto-inverting black text on a white background.
• Auto-orientation or auto-cropping of an image.
• Cleaning borders.
• Dotted or solid line removal.
• Punch hold removal.

7. Background Correction

ImageGear can identify the best-fit plane for an image and then adjust the image luminance tilt accordingly, either by increasing or decreasing the image plane. This method is particularly effective at correcting illumination gradients in low-quality digitized images.

8. Image Effects

As part of its image processing capabilities, ImageGear provides a wide array of image effects that can be used to transform or modify image files. Developers can easily integrate these tools into their application’s viewer to allow end users to easily alter images. Some of these image effects include:

• Aging Effect: This effect adjusts image saturation and contrast to make an image appear worn and old. Noise and random vertical lines are also added to enhance the effect.
• Boost Effect: Often used to make older or faded images look new and more vibrant, this effect increases saturation, brightness, and contrast.
• Drop Shadow: This method adds a drop shadow to an image, which is often useful for setting an image apart from a background when combining visual elements.
• Gaussian Blur: Typically used to smooth out composited images, this effect blurs pixels to soften images and make them appear slightly (or extremely) out of focus.
• High Density Range Effect: This effect increases the contrast of shadow, highlight, and midtone areas separately, which mimics the human eye’s ability to adjust to lighting conditions rather than applying a uniform contrast adjustment.
• Lens Flare Effect: Commonly used to make images appear more dramatic or realistic, this method simulates a bright light reflecting within the camera lens.
• Solarize Effect: This effect sets a light threshold and then inverts the colors of any pixels that exceed that value. When applied to an image, it mimics the look of photographic film that was exposed to too much light during development.
• Toy Camera Effect: Often used to liven up an image, this effect emulates the distortions and imperfections created by using a low-quality camera lens in poor shooting conditions. 
• Sketch Effect: By blending the original image with a texture image, this effect can make the image look like it was sketched with a pencil or charcoal.
• Artistic Effects: This feature includes a series of effects that make images look as if they were hand painted. Two of these methods, the Pointillist and Splatter methods, use randomly generated pixel elements that cause the resulting image to be different each time the method is applied.

Expand Your Image Processing Capabilities with ImageGear

The features listed above only scratch the surface of ImageGear’s capabilities. In addition to essential image processing tools, the SDK also allows developers to add document features like annotation, conversion, compression, and full-page optical character recognition (OCR). With support for dozens of file formats, ImageGear gives software teams the tools they need to expand their application’s capabilities without wasting months of valuable development time. To get a first-hand look at what ImageGear can do for your .NET application, download a trial today.

Printers, scanners, and other imaging devices have long been a source of headaches and frustration for developers and users alike. All too often, multiple software tools are required to connect an application to a device and acquire image files from them. This not only slows down workflows, but also creates opportunities for human error. Files can easily be misplaced or imported using the wrong parameters under these conditions.

Thanks to ImageGear’s TWAIN scanning support, however, developers can ensure that their application makes acquiring images from compatible devices both straightforward and mistake free. 

What Is TWAIN?

Developed in 1992 by a consortium of software developers and hardware manufacturers, the TWAIN standard is a standard software protocol and API that facilitates communication between imaging devices and software applications running on a computer. The word itself refers to a famous line in the Rudyard Kipling poem “The Ballad of East and West” that reads “never the twain shall meet.” Although sometimes alleged to stand for “Technology Without An Interesting Name,” the term is not actually an acronym despite being capitalized.

The name is well chosen because the TWAIN standard helped to solve the enduring problem of getting imaging devices and computers to connect and send data between one another. Most commonly used for scanners and digital cameras, TWAIN made it possible to request an image file to be imported into an application without having to utilize additional software or input commands using the physical device.

Implementing TWAIN Scanning with ImageGear

As a versatile image processing SDK, ImageGear fully supports the TWAIN specification, which allows developers to support any TWAIN-capable device directly into their applications. In most instances, this will involve adding a “Scan” button or option somewhere in the platform’s interface so that users can quickly and easily instruct their scanner to capture an image and pass it along to the application’s storage or workflow. Developers can also use the integration to adjust device settings directly from their application, such as changing the scanning area, modifying brightness and contrast, or increasing/decreasing dots-per-inch (resolution). 

ImageGear’s TWAIN scanning feature works with three external elements to facilitate image file transfers:

• The Device: Usually a scanner or digital camera, this is the primary imaging source. The device must be compliant with TWAIN protocol.This is typically indicated by the manufacturer.
• Data Source: Although ImageGear’s TWAIN scanning features can connect an application to a scanner, the device still needs a software driver that allows it to communicate with the computer’s operating system.
• Data Source Manager: The TWAIN manager software provides a universal mechanism for managing and using data sources from different device manufacturers. Developed by the TWAIN consortium, it can be downloaded for free and installed wherever the application is running.

(Both the device’s data source driver and TWAIN data source manager should be included with its installation software. They are not provided by the ImageGear SDK).

Acquiring an Image Using TWAIN Scanning

ImageGear can configure an application to gather an image or set of images from a connected device with a few simple steps.

Step 1: Open the Data Source

Developers can set the application to automatically open a default Data Source. This is typically the best choice when only one scanner is available, as is often the case in a small workplace. They can also use the Data Source Manager to provide a list of all available Data Sources and let the user select the one they need.

Step 2: Adjust Settings

ImageGear’s TWAIN scanning features allow image acquisition parameters to be set through the application. Parameters such as page count and image size can be set to a common default, but developers can also give the option to obtain the various capabilities (listed as “ScanCaps”) and display them for users to select from. ImageGear supports a wide range of TWAIN-related capabilities.

Step 3: Acquire Image

After all settings are configured, the image can be scanned and loaded into an ImGearPage Class object. When acquiring a multi-page image, ImGearPages are loaded into an ImGearDocument Class object instead.

How ImageGear TWAIN Scanning Looks in Code

As an example, here’s what the C# code may look like when using ImageGear to help an application import an image from a TWAIN Data Source:

using System;
using ImageGear.Core;
using ImageGear.TWAIN;

public ImGearPage AcquireImage(IntPtr Handle)
{
    ImGearPage igPage = null;
    ImGearTWAIN igTWAIN = new ImGearTWAIN();

    igTWAIN.WindowHandle = Handle;
    igTWAIN.UseUI = true;

    try
    {
        // Open the data source selection dialog
        igTWAIN.OpenSource(String.Empty);

        // Initialize the scanning
        igPage = igTWAIN.AcquireToPage();
    } 

    catch(ImGearException e)
    {
        // Handle the exception ...
    }

    finally
    {
        if(igTWAIN.DataSourceManagerOpen == true)
        {
            igTWAIN.CloseSource();
        }
    }

    return igPage;
}

Expand Your Application’s TWAIN Support with ImageGear

Accusoft’s ImageGear SDK provides comprehensive support for a broad range of TWAIN devices, which makes it easier than ever for developers to control the scanning process directly from their applications. Integrating TWAIN scanning can streamline workflows and significantly improve the software user experience by completely eliminating the need to turn to external programs for image acquisition. ImageGear is fully compatible with multiple generations of the TWAIN standard, including TWAIN v1.6, v1.7, v1.8, v1.9, and v2.4.

In addition to TWAIN scanning support, ImageGear provides powerful image and document processing capabilities that can transform your application workflows. With extensive file conversion and compression features, it’s the best way to quickly integrate content management features into your platform. To get a glimpse of what ImageGear can do for your .NET application, download a free trial today and start building.