Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an automated technology and system that converts printed or scanned images of printed text into computer-readable content for easy scanning, data entry, storage, and access. It can captures almost all the information available in an image, including strokes and patterns.
OCR is a powerful tool used by commercial, government, and academic organizations worldwide to convert images of texts into textual information – ready for further processing in many contexts, such as document management, e-mail transmission, and Internet search.
OCR technology provides a platform for data collection, retrieval and organization that is intuitive, efficient and accurate. Furthermore, OCR makes document processing and recognition more efficient, which results in higher work efficiency and productivity.
Moreover, OCR is useful for many offices or other established organization that wants to keep track of important documents and information. Employees can use this technology to find and access information regarding daily work. Since OCR technology relies on computers for access or storage, it eliminates the need for paper files – which guarantees that sensitive and important data are protected from potential threats such as fire, water, theft, etc.
One crucial thing to consider for using OCR is the quality of the scanned or printed image. It is essential to understand that using OCR isn’t always the best solution, especially if there are a lot of errors in the text or the image is not aligned perfectly. Using pre-processing techniques, such as aligning images perfectly or removing unnecessary spots or lines from scanned documents, can help reduce errors in OCR text recognition.