Data extraction or information retrieval is a crucial task for businesses. The reason may be numerous paper records or slow methods of data extraction. The first problem can’t be solved, but the second one has a reliable solution i.e. OCR. It is a cutting-edge technology used for information retrieval from hard documents.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
The technology that is used for digitizing handwritten and printed papers is known as Optical Character recognition. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) for locating areas containing data along with natural language processing (NLP). OCR can capture data from the below types of writing styles.
Printed Documents
The documents are typed by computer keyboard and then printed are called printed documents. The line in the paper has a proper format and standard.
Handwritten Documents
These documents are written by human hands and commonly have cursive writing styles. Handwritten documents do not have a standard format and also are not properly aligned.
MRZ Codes
Although this is not a writing style, this is a code printed on documents. OCR first locates and then decodes the machine-readable zone. MRZ code is used to protect documents from faking and copying attempts. Now all the sensitive documents have MRZ at the top or bottom.
Why Online Optical Character Recognition?
Now there is OCR software in the market that can be installed as a mobile app or accessed through the website. A user just has to capture an image of the required document verification and then upload it to the OCR software. OCR will give the data extraction results in real-time.
Below are the key benefits of OCR:
Higher Productivity
Businesses can incorporate OCR to increase their productivity. Now the paper documents are digitized in seconds instead of humans. Before it, employees have to manually enter each paper’s data into the computer. The time and resources spent on human entry can now be utilized for more productive activities. Also, the employees do not have to wait for the papers physically present in front of them. As OCR uses document images, they can be easily sent and received through the internet.
Minimal Expenses
By using OCR the costs spent on employee salaries and other expenses can be minimized. Furthermore, huge resources were lost on photocopying, printing, and shipping documents can be saved. Businesses spend a huge part of the money on the correction of misspelled words or inaccurate sentences that can be reduced by OCR
High Accuracy
As human data entry can have mistakes of spelling or formatting. OCR delivers the best accurate results with minimum chances of mistakes. Currently, OCR gives the 98% plus accuracy rate which is much higher than manual data insertion.
Greater Storage Space
Paper documents require huge rooms and sometimes buildings to store. This takes costs on purchasing and then storing them in secure physical spaces. Digital documents are easy to store, thousands of file data can be stored in just one flash drive.
Cloud storage provides an additional benefit in this case. Now businesses upload their data in centralized online databases which can be accessed from multiple locations at once.
Data Editing & Searching
Editing a single word or character was a crucial task in the documents. It has to be erased or cutover to modification, sometimes the alteration attempts damages the document physically.
Exploring a name or a number on the file system takes hours of searching. Just imagine a business having records of thousands of customers, one day they see specific customer data. It has to look in every paper for search. But the automated data can be searched with just a click.
Summing it Up
Having all the above advantages, OCR is one of the most efficient and convenient technologies these days. Data can be extracted by just clicking a photograph of the document. Numerous images can be inserted into the OCR software for robust data digitization.
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