Softek Barcode Reader Toolkit is a Windows application designed specifically for helping you extract barcodes from images and PDF files. Barcodes can be read from both color and black and white pictures.

The tool comes packed with a set of DLLs that can be used by programs in order to extract barcode values from user-defined files. The toolkit supports Code 39, Code 128, Code 2 of 5, EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, Codabar, and Patch barcode formats.

Softek Barcode Reader Toolkit sports a clean GUI that hides complex configuration settings under the hood. The scanning process for barcodes is pretty much automatic so you do not need to put any effort into tweaking this one.

Files can be added in the working environment using the built-in browse button (you cannot rely on the drag-and-drop support). You can make use of preset hotkeys for different actions but you cannot reassign them.

Softek Barcode Reader Toolkit gives you the possibility to import pictures with the following file formats: JPG, BMP, PNG, GIF, and TIF. In addition, it is able to scan PDF files with multiple pages.

The program helps you preview the pictures and content of the PDF files directly in the main window. What’s more, you are allowed to zoom in or out of the file, rotate items to different angles, as well as jump to the next, previous, first, last or custom page.

You are given the freedom to scan the current or all pages for barcodes, abort the scan process, and pick the barcode format.

The scan process for barcodes is fast and simple but not the same thing can be said about the dedicated parameters which are designed for professional users.

The configuration settings refer to speed (e.g. maximum number of threads, maximum barcodes per page), skewed barcodes, images included in PDFs, barcode length and content, unread barcodes, color processing level, and noise reduction filter. Good news is that you can export the configuration settings to XML file format so you can import data in your future projects.

All things considered, Softek Barcode Reader Toolkit provides a set of advanced tools for helping developers add barcode detection to their applications.