OCR is an abbreviation for “Optical Character Recognition.” It is a technique that detects text within digital images or digitized documents. Any picture or a paper form document can be converted into a text-based electronic copy using OCR software.
For example, if you employ a printer to scan a paper record or photograph, the printer will almost unquestionably create a file containing a digital image. The document could be a JPG/TIFF or PDF, but the modern technological file could still be nothing more than an image of the actual document.
You can then open a program and load the digitized electronic record that is generated, which contains the image. The OCR programme, which recognizes the text and converts it to an editable text file.
Common Real-World OCR Solutions
OCR is widely used in a variety of sectors (primarily to reduce manual human effort). It has become so integrated into our daily lives that we hardly notice it! They do, however, strive to provide a better user experience. OCR is used to obtain information from handwritten documents.
Several works are getting done in this field, and we have made some significant advances. Additionally, Microsoft has created a quantitative application that takes a handwritten mathematical formula as input and produces the answer along with a step-by-step explanation of how it works.
Numerous industries are increasingly using OCR for computerization to reduce manual workload. It makes extracting and storing information from financial records, receipts, invoices, travel documents, and so on very simple and efficient. In addition, when you publish documents for KYC (Know Your Customer), OCR is used to glean information from these records and store it for future use. OCR is also used in manuscript scanning to convert raw images into computer-readable formats.
Many significant projects, such as the Gutenberg project, the Million Book Project, and Google Books, use OCR to search and digitize books and repository the works. In addition, the finance industry is increasingly utilizing OCR to record client-related documents, such as onboarding material, to create client directories quickly. It reduces training time and, as a result, improves customer experience.
Financial institutions also use OCR to glean data- from cheques such as bank details, amount, and cheque numbers for efficient execution. Without acknowledging their use in self-driving automobiles, OCR applications are imperfect. Autonomous vehicles rely heavily on OCR to read road signs and landmarks. An understanding of these indications makes automated driving safe for walkers and other road users.
There are undoubtedly numerous other applications for OCR, such as vehicle license plate recognition, transforming scanned documents into customizable word documents, and so on.
The use of OCR for computerization has obvious benefits such as easy storage and management of the text, not to mention the extraordinary amount of analytics applied to this data! OCR is without a doubt one of the most important areas of Computer Vision.
How does OCR Work?
OCR software programs work differently based on the programmer and the intended purpose, but they all adhere to some basic principles. Preprocessing is a phase of the software that tries to make the content in the file clearer and easier to understand.
Because no scanner is flawless, there will inevitably be flaws in the scanned image produced by the most advanced, commercial scanners. It accomplishes this by cleaning up the picture and alienating the characters from the rest of the background. It ensures that the text lines get perfectly coordinated and that the pixels get straightened out.
The next step for the operating system is to isolate each unique character, recognizing pixels and the spaces among them. It enables the program to sequence each character and understand that clustering of optical attributes constitutes a word. The next step is the most difficult as this step is frequently the one that distinguishes different OCR programs.
Once the OCR program has determined what constitutes a character, it then decides the type of character to assign the appropriate metadata. Simple OCR software compares the characters to a catalog of fonts to see if they match and if any data can get distributed.
However, more advanced techniques are imperative for a text that does not match any discernible fonts in an archive, such as unusual fonts or handwritten text. More advanced OCR programs will continue to compare characters to common patterns to determine which character it is.
They will understand that the letter “A” gets made up of two diagonal stripes with a line in the middle. The most intelligent OCR will use contextual hints to determine which characters and phrases are which. If it can’t figure out whether a character is an “I” or a “1,” it looks at the nearby characters and makes an informed guess.
What are the Benefits of OCR?
Although OCR has many benefits, it primarily aids businesses in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their work. Its ability to quickly search through enormous content is pretty helpful, particularly in office settings, which deal with high document inflow and high volume scanning. Mentioned hereunder are the top benefits of OCR.
- Increased Productivity
OCR software aids companies in increasing productivity by allowing for faster data retrieval when needed. Employees can now devote more time and energy to core activities instead of wasting time and effort retrieving relevant data. Furthermore, employees do not need to make multiple trips to the central records room to obtain necessary documentation because they can do so without leaving their desks.
- Cost-cutting
One of the most significant advantages of OCR office work methods is that it allows businesses to reduce the cost of hiring experts to perform data extraction. This tool can also help you save money on things like copying, printing, and transporting.
As a result, OCR eliminates the cost of misplaced or lost documents while also providing additional savings in the form of salvaged office space that would otherwise get used to store paper documents.
- High Precision
Inconsistency is one of the most challenging aspects of data entry. Limited errors and misrepresentations result from automated data entry tools such as OCR data entry, resulting in a more efficient data entry. Furthermore, OCR data entry can successfully address issues such as data loss. Because there is no human intervention, inadvertently or intentionally entering incorrect data can be avoided.
The Bottom Line
As a step toward digitization, OCR has several benefits. There is frequently a large volume of data and files in business, whether on agreements, shipping slips, government paperwork, licenses, certificates, tariff sheets, catalogs, and so on.
After digitizing, you can directly compare them with other digital records to find the best rates, services, terms of service, and so on. You can use OCR to check for differences between the current terms and conditions and your signed agreement. Cheques can also get verified for the correct amount, invoices compared, and so on.
Furthermore, by digitizing documents, you make them available for advanced methods, which can notify you about long-term advancements in your business. You can identify loss leaders, tax evasion or overpayment, and much more, allowing significant price savings. These are the actual benefits of digitization, but OCR is a critical first step in transforming analog records.
