What is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an essential tool for any business burdened by manual data entry. Imagine making decisions from data trapped in mountains of paper. Or having to key-in information from an electronic file because it is a flat image (not searchable text). An OCR capture software solution automatically extracts data from an electronic document image and makes it come alive. No more time wasted with hand-keying data. You have real live data that you can act on and integrate into your existing systems.
Common Capture Technology Terms
To help you better understand the complex world of capture, let’s start with some basics. Depending on the type of data you need to extract, there are different technologies available. For example, OCR, ICR, OMR and Intelligent Capture are the most common.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
A common misconception of OCR software is it can extract all data types. In reality, an OCR’s sole use is for extracting machine-printed text. These solutions may be template-driven or paired with artificial intelligence. With the addition of artificial intelligence, your system can read and extract data without templates (like a human).
Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR)
ICR software reads handwritten characters by using artificial intelligence. Depending upon the document type, this may be done through boxes or comb-fields.
Optical Mark Recognition (OMR)
You can use Optical Mark Recognition software to determine a selection from a list of choices. This list could include checked boxes and filled circles.
Intelligent Capture Software
This new category of capture software contains all of the technology capabilities of OCR, ICR and OMR into one solution. Intelligent Capture solutions can handle many data types. For example, intelligent capture can read machine-printed text, handwritten text, checkboxes, radio buttons, and barcodes.
Where to Use OCR Software
OCR capture can be helpful virtually everywhere in your organization. While it’s a popular process solution in accounts payable departments, OCR aids other departments too. Start asking questions of these processes with business owners such as:
- Are there departments that regularly process large quantities of paper or electronic documents?
- How many human touch points happen within that process?
- What areas manually enter data into systems?
- Where does information need to go when it enters the process?
- Does the information need to be routed through a specific system or person? How does it get there?