Want to automate and speed up your business data? One of the best ways is to use OCR technology. OCR technology allows a computer to read the text of a document and convert that text into searchable and editable information. While PDF is generally the preferred file format, OCR can convert your text to image files like jpg.
OCR solutions leverage text mining, feature detection, and pattern recognition to deliver greater precision than ever before. But why would your business invest in an OCR solution? You will come to know why OCR is important for businesses later.
History of OCR Technology
The primitive use of optical symbols goes back to telegraph technology and reading for the blind. Emanuel Goldberg built an OCR-like machine. It reads the characters and converts them to standard phone numbers.
At the same time, Edmund Fournier d’Albe invented the photoelectric telephone. Like Goldberg’s invention, this is a handwriting that produces sounds corresponding to certain letters or characters as it moves across the page.
From the late 1920s to the early 1930s, Goldberg developed a machine that used optical code recognition to search microfilm archives. He called it the “statistics machine”. In 1931, he patented the invention, which was later acquired by IBM.
What is optical character recognition?
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology used to distinguish printed or written text from digital images of physical documents such as scanned documents. The basic process of OCR involves scanning the text of a document and converting the characters into numbers that can be used to process the information.
OCR is also sometimes called text recognition.
OCR systems are a combination of hardware and software used to convert physical data into machine-readable text. A software usually takes care of advanced operations, while hardware such as optical scanners or special circuit boards is used to print or read documents. The software can also use artificial intelligence (AI) to apply smarter character recognition (ICR) skills, such as recognizing words or handwriting.
The OCR process is often used to convert complex legal or historical documents to PDFs. When placed in this flexible document, users can edit, format and search the document as if it was created with a word processor. After knowing the benefits of OCR technology I hope you will understand why OCR is important for your business.
How Does OCR Technology Work?
First, you need to understand how OCR works and then discuss its benefits for businesses. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. Each OCR software program works slightly differently depending on the developer.
However, most OCR software comes with a preprocessing that makes the text in the document clear and easy to read. The software does this by clearing the image and separating the characters from everything else on the page. OCR software also makes text lines readable and pixel-aliased. After that, the software separates all characters. It does this by recognizing symbols made up of pixels and the space between them.
Once the OCR software solution knows it needs to recognize a character, it’s time to determine what that character is so that it can provide the correct metadata.
A simple OCR software solution compares the character to the font library to see if there is a match. If there’s any similarity the OCR technology will merge the information. But just in case, if the text is not what you want then OCR uses more advanced techniques. More advanced OCR solutions constantly compare the characters on the page with a corresponding pattern to help identify them.
Optical Character Recognition technology makes it easier than ever to convert image to text. With the help of OCR technology, we can easily accomplish a time-consuming task. For example, convert text to text, search for images using search terms, copy documents without typing, etc.
Benefits of OCR Solutions
Why Should Your Business Invest in OCR Technology? Following are the top 7 benefits of OCR technology in businesses.
1. Save your time
Do you think you are wasting your time with work tasks? Having trouble managing your work schedule? If so, an OCR solution might help.
The most important and essential benefit of using OCR technology is it saves your time so you can work on other things. With OCR technology, you don’t have to waste time manually copying documents. Rather, you just need to use OCR technology to scan your text and your document becomes ready.
2. Save your money
The OCR solution saves you time as well as money. With OCR, you don’t have to spend money on copying, printing, managing office supplies, or recovering lost documents.
Plus, you don’t have to waste shipping costs to order new books paperless. As you know OCR is a one-time investment that’s why it saves you money in the long run.
3. Make it easy to replace the document
In general, a scanned document must be modified in several ways, especially if the text needs to be updated. In turn, this can increase customer retention.
4. Produce more Productivity
Another benefit of OCR technology is that it can help increase business productivity. By converting into a cheaper model of the businesses your association will work more rapidly and effectively. With the OCR text recognition feature, you don’t need to waste time with unnecessary documents
5. Recovery in case of Natural Emergency
Another key benefit of OCR solutions for disaster recovery is that they can facilitate disaster recovery. OCR files are stored electronically on secure servers and shared systems.
So these files will stay safe even in an emergency. In case of fire or any other natural disaster, you can get your data digitalized and you can do your work in any emergency.
6. Decrease errors and inaccuracy
Finally, OCR technology can help reduce the number of errors that occur in an organization. Incomplete information and misinformation can cost your business thousands of dollars if you’re not careful. In addition, for some businesses, these errors can cause serious security problems.
This is especially true for the healthcare industry. With OCR technology, you don’t have to worry about these mistakes ruining your organization.
7. Improving Customer Care Service
The thing all the customers are facing and don’t like is waiting. The best part about OCR technology is that it helps reduce customer wait times by giving your service representatives quick access to information.
Your representative of customer care service needs to use the OCR search ability to find the customer immediately even if the customer is on the call. In turn, this can increase customer retention.
Read More: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can Improve Customer Service
Final Verdict
OCR technology has become a game-changer for businesses of all sizes and industries, offering a wide range of key benefits. From increased efficiency and productivity to improved accuracy and reduced errors, OCR technology has revolutionized the way businesses handle data and information.
