Ever have to manually enter information from a document into a digital form word-by-word? This is common with transferring data from paper into a digital form. Or maybe you are writing a new piece of collateral in DOC form from a PDF and the words don’t copy-and-paste correctly? Whatever the route, human error likely occurred during the process. That’s natural, too, considering many enterprises still input and transfer data manually. What if we told you that there was a way to digitize this information in a clean, easy to replicate way? Behold OCR document scanning, a technology that can be integrated into a workflow solution to better extend the efficiency of processes. By digitizing paperwork to use in workflows, enterprises are equipped to handle multiple forms of data input — whether that is through documents, form submissions, APIs of third-party systems, chatbots, or other technologies. The result is increased productivity in workflows, time savings and reduced costs, and extension of current system value across document-based processes.
What is OCR?
OCR is short for optical character recognition. According to Scanbot, OCR is “image processing technology which provides a convenient way to convert paper documents into a digital format.” Most commonly found in document management, OCR can play a vital part in improving business process automation for your organization. During OCR scanning, an algorithm recognizes characters from printed sources and converts them into digital format. Once this is done, the digital format is easily searchable and editable. OCR scanners are easily customizable and thus are ideal for industries with paper-heavy processes in place. Industries that benefit the most including banking, higher education, legal, insurance, telecommunications, and more, as they handle enormous amounts of data at one time.
How does the OCR actually work?
An ordinary scanner or photocopy machine creates what is known as a raster image, or a collection of black and white or colored dots. To take and repurpose data from camera images or image-only PDFs, you need OCR software that will take the letters from those images to create words, then sentences, to access and edit the original content on the page. This is done through looking at each line of the image, with the OCR scanner figuring out if the black and white dots represent a certain letter or number. There are several OCR tools available to convert image-based documents to PDFs, .docx, or other formats. The main features that differentiate OCR application tools, according to , include character recognition accuracy, page layout reconstruction accuracy, multi-engine voting technology, support for languages, support for searchable PDF output, speed, and user interface (UI).
