Optical character recognition (OCR) technology is an efficient business process that saves time, cost and other resources by utilizing automated data extraction and storage capabilities.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is sometimes referred to as text recognition. An OCR program extracts and repurposes data from scanned documents, camera images and image-only pdfs. OCR software singles out letters on the image, puts them into words and then puts the words into sentences, thus enabling access to and editing of the original content. It also eliminates the need for manual data entry.
OCR systems use a combination of hardware and software to convert physical, printed documents into machine-readable text. Hardware — such as an optical scanner or specialized circuit board — copies or reads text; then, software typically handles the advanced processing.
OCR software can take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) to implement more advanced methods of intelligent character recognition (ICR), like identifying languages or styles of handwriting. The process of OCR is most commonly used to turn hard copy legal or historical documents into pdf documents so that users can edit, format and search the documents as if created with a word processor.
The following PDF OCR languages are supported: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Indonesian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Turkish, Russian, Thai, Polish, Arabic etc.
The main benefit of optical character recognition (OCR) technology is that it simplifies the data-entry process by creating effortless text searches, editing and storage. OCR allows businesses and individuals to store files on their computers, laptops and other devices, ensuring constant access to all documentation.The main benefit of optical character recognition (OCR) technology is that it simplifies the data-entry process by creating effortless text searches, editing and storage. OCR allows businesses and individuals to store files on their computers, laptops and other devices, ensuring constant access to all documentation.
The benefits of employing OCR technology include the following:
Reduce costs
Accelerate workflows
Automate document routing and content processing
Centralize and secure data (no fires, break-ins or documents lost in the back vaults)
Improve service by ensuring employees have the most up-to-date and accurate information
The most well-known use case for optical character recognition (OCR) is converting printed paper documents into machine-readable text documents. Once a scanned paper document goes through OCR processing, the text of the document can be edited with a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
OCR is often used as a hidden technology, powering many well-known systems and services in our daily life. Important — but less-known — use cases for OCR technology include data-entry automation, assisting blind and visually impaired persons and indexing documents for search engines, such as passports, license plates, invoices, bank statements, business cards and automatic number plate recognition.
OCR enables the optimization of big-data modeling by converting paper and scanned image documents into machine-readable, searchable pdf files. Processing and retrieving valuable information cannot be automated without first applying OCR in documents where text layers are not already present.
With OCR text recognition, scanned documents can be integrated into a big-data system that is now able to read client data from bank statements, contracts and other important printed documents. Instead of having employees examine countless image documents and manually feed inputs into an automated big-data processing workflow, organizations can use OCR to automate at the input stage of data mining. OCR software can identify the text in the image, extract text in pictures, save the text file and support jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, tiff, pdf and other formats.
