Digitization revolution during the last decades has elevated the number of online transactions and remote work. Organizations need to access their customers globally and provide them the services remotely. This requires the handling of numerous types of transactions, information and documents digitally. This blog will explain optical character recognition technology (OCR) and how it works to process and store large amounts of data in this digital world.
Evolution Of OCR Technology
Before the evolution of OCR technology, the only way to convert any data in digital form was to type it manually. This process was time-consuming and needed manpower. Accuracy of manual typing was very low because of typing errors. This needed a method to convert text from paper to computer without typing it. OCR technology has the ability to recognize text in a digital image. Although OCR technology originated in the 1970’s but it became popular in the start of the 1990s, when digital newspapers were introduced. Right from that time this technology is going through continuous advancements and improvements. Today OCR apps can deliver data with nearly 100% accuracy.
What is an OCR?
OCR is a process that extracts data from a text image and converts it into machine-readable text form, as the data in image form cannot be processed through the computer. Image data needs to be converted into text form for processing, that’s why this process is also called text recognition. This converted data can further be edited or analyzed to streamline operations.
How does OCR work?
An OCR engine is an OCR software that uses OCR technology to convert an image into text data. Both components of the computer i.n. hardware and software are required to complete the process. Following are the main segments of the process.
Accession Of image
A scanner is used to read the text in the image and convert it into the digital format. It consists of a circuit board to copy or read images. There two types of scanners:
- 1. OCR image reader
- 2. OCR text scanner
Processing of Data
This image file form of text provided by the scanner is not readable by the computer so this data needs to be converted into binary language. An OCR engine cleans the image by removing errors and converts data in black and white form. The software then recognizes dark areas as text and light areas as surroundings. Further processing is carried out to detect numeric and alphabetic data. Then comes the stage to identify characters or text recognition. There are two types of text recognition depending on the type of algorithm used by the OCR engine.
- Pattern Matching
Pattern matching type of recognition works on the text copied from the scanned document and compares it with already stored text fonts and formats. This character image is called a glyph.
- Feature Detection
This method works on the special features of characters and each glyph is divided into its features, such as horizontal and vertical lines, cross lines, and curved lines. These features are then matched with stored glyphs.
After the successful completion of matching an OCR scanner online provides text as a computer file.
Uses Of OCR Technology In Digital World
OCR services use the OCR technology to process data in different industries like banks, financial institutions, healthcare, logistics and other businesses.. Some of OCR use cases in different industries are as follows.
Public
Different OCR apps are also available on the mobile phones for individuals like students and teachers that can extract data by simply taking a screenshot or uploading an image.
Banks
In banks and other financial institutions, OCR is used to verify and process loan documents, account opening documents and checks.
Healthcare
In the healthcare sector, OCR is used to keep a patient’s history and hospital record.
Logistics
It can track labels, receipts and invoices efficiently in the logistics industry.
Blind And Visually Impaired Persons
It helps blind and visually impaired persons by providing a text to speech format.
Benefits Of OCR Technology
Best online OCR provides following core benefits to its users.
- It reduces the cost and time of manual data entry.
- It accelerates document workflow.
- It allows editing, analyzing and securing data automatically.
- It reduces errors and makes searching possible.
- It is very simple and easy to work with.
- It can work with different languages and different forms of text like print, typed or handwritten.
- It can integrate advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to meet future challenges.
Final Verdict
It is vital for all organizations to implement optical character recognition technology to convert their physical documents into searchable databases. It improves the efficiency of workflow systems. It is a useful tool for protecting businesses from document forgeries, fraud, and other illegal activities. Furthermore helps organizations to update the records and streamline their operations in this digital landscape.