What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Technology?

In today’s digitalized world, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has become an important tool in the digitization of an organization’s hard copy. It is extensively used in business applications in order to capture data from paper documents and then convert them into digital format for storing, archiving, searching, and retrieving purposes.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is basically software technology that transforms scanned images of printed paper into digital ASCII text values this can speed up the workflow of an organization and makes it easier to search through converted paper files in just a few clicks. Wondering? How is it possible? You will get the answer in this blog.

Here, we will discuss the definition of OCR, its usage, advantages, and its relationship with the document scanning process. So, now let’s start with the basics first.

What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR)?

Optical character recognition (OCR) is a process of transforming or converting machine-printed text, into digital ASCII text so that it can be recognized and utilized by computers, tablets, and other devices. It can be used in digitizing machine-printed text from scanned paper documents, old books, microfilm, microfiche, drawings, maps, and other hard copy sources.

The entire process makes the text more search-friendly and accessible. Also, at the same time, it helps in preserving the original structuring of the text, which can be repurposed or applied to create a new document for other purposes.

The OCR technology helps in automating the data extraction process from machine-printed or typed text into a scanned document or PDF file format and then translating them into the machineencoded format for reading, searching, and editing purposes. It should be noted that the OCR Technology is highly dependent on the quality of the source paper copy and therefore scanned image.

Any obstruction or diminished quality of the source hard copy text will inhibit the ability of the OCR Technology to accurately convert the imaged character into text. It should also be noted that OCR Technology is designed for the conversion of machine-printed text. Hand Printed Text and/or Cursive printed text will not be easily recognized by OCR.

There are a number of different OCR engines, one for each of the primary languages in the world. paper documents authored in a specific language can easily be scanned and converted using the OCR engine of the corresponding language to the printed original.

The application of OCR technology is a process that combines the mixture of both software (OCR engines) and hardware (Document Scanners) that turn paper documents into electronic-readable content.

Before the invention of OCR technology, there was only one way to digitize paper documents, and this was manually retyping the text. During the ’90s when digitizing paper documents started for the very first time, OCR technology started playing an important role. However, with time, this technology has been developed and made more sophisticated in order to improve its accuracy level. In today’s age, the accuracy level of OCR technology has no comparison.

Trace the use of OCR Technology in Different Verticals

OCR is now used in different verticals where a large volume of paper documents accumulates such as the insurance sector, banking sector, healthcare sector, libraries, governmental agencies, and so on. Let’s discuss each sector in detail –

Banking Sector

This is a sector where OCR technology is extensively used. The banking industry is said to be one of the biggest platforms where this tool plays a pivotal role. For example, this tool is used when users deposit checks in ATMs. The cheques are scanned automatically with the help of OCR technology. It is a kind of security check that scans the signature, amount, and depositor without involving any manual interference.

Healthcare Sector

Another sector where OCR technology is extensively used is the healthcare sector. Every month almost hundreds of medical claims-related papers are accumulated, and this automatically turns into piles of paper documents that require a proper storage drive for keeping important data of patients.

To go paperless and to improve the level of patient care, OCR technology has been introduced in the healthcare sector that scans all paper documents in just a few minutes and stores them in a safe cloud storage drive easily accessible via an online platform just by entering a specific keyword at any time and anywhere.

OCR technology helps to facilitate the process of retrieval and submission of medical claims, records, and other medical histories of patients. In addition to this, this technology helps the institution to comply with HIPAA security rules and regulations

Legal Sector

Most of the time legal professionals require rapid access to their client’s information and other related legal documents. To make this task easier for them, OCR technology has been implemented in this field that has been adopted by both large and well-recognized firms.

As an example, an attorney can search thousands of paper documents to find any occurrence of a person’s name, or a product name to find any documents that may be relevant to their case. This has also facilitated the process of digitizing paper documents.

Without OCR, it is a complex procedure to transform scanned documents into easily accessible and searchable data. This technology ensures that you can easily find out any resource just by typing the keywords in the search box.

How does OCR Technology Help in the Document Scanning Process?

While document scanning comes with many sophisticated features and capabilities, optical character recognition is considered to be one of the most important tools that could bring 100% accuracy level and easy accessibility to digital files.

Have you ever wondered how document scanning and OCR technology are interrelated when you think about digitizing documents? Well, that’s a common curiosity that most people have when they take their step toward digitization. When you search for particular information, you can find it easily by using its related keyword. Once you put the keyword, it will show you all the documents where that keyword is used.

Most companies have evolved this OCR technology to transform paper documents into scanned documents, images, and PDF files into easily searchable and editable data. In this system, an optical character reader is used in recognizing and interpreting data in various formats as well as languages.

This process makes sure that when you put a particular search keyword either in the ECM or DMS system, the search will show you all the documents which contain the keywords. This technology has improved the procedure of document scanning and digitization of paper documents as employees don’t need to spend a lot of time searching for a particular type of information. Just imagine, what it will look like if an employee needs to go through stacks of papers to find information.

Another important benefit of document scanning is that employees don’t need to review documents manually or remove outdated records. This technology will automatically update the latest data and thus, the process of document preservation and retention has been automated.

In today’s age, OCR technology is observed as an unparalleled change because of the use of Artificial intelligence. It has evolved from traditional image conversion to text conversion to an error-free checker.