During transactions and business negotiations, it is required to transfer papers and files from one format to another. For sending and saving written content, PNG, JPEG, or PDF formats might be highly useful.
As organizations transition to a paperless environment. To save the information and make it accessible when needed, handwritten content must be digitally captured. Transcription, a time-consuming and expensive process, was the norm in the past.
OCR, or optical character recognition, comes into play here. It makes it easier for people, corporations, and organizations to scan and alter photos of printed, typed, or handwritten text. To assist in achieving notable outcomes, businesses are utilizing OCR that connects with ERPs and other systems. In this post, we go through how businesses can use OCR technology to automate their duties.
What is OCR Technology?
Optical character recognition is the process of transforming a text image into a text format that a computer can read. For instance, your computer will save the scan as an image file if you scan a receipt or a form.
The words in the image file cannot be altered, looked up, or counted using a text editor. OCR can, however, be used to extract the text from the image and save it as text data.
The OCR Process: How Does It Work?
The steps listed below are used by the OCR software or engine to operate:
Image acquisition
A scanner reads paper documents and converts them into binary data. The OCR algorithm classifies the light sections of the scanned image as backgrounds and the dark regions as text.
Preprocessing
The OCR application initially cleans the image and corrects any errors before it is ready for reading. It uses many cleaning techniques, such as:
Deskewing or severely tilting the scanned paper may be necessary to correct alignment issues during the scan.
It is necessary to erase digital image spots and smooth out text picture edges.
Removing the image’s boxes and lines.
OCR technique for multilingual script recognition
Text recognition
Pattern matching and feature extraction are the two primary OCR algorithms used by OCR software for text recognition.
Pattern matching
By focusing on a single-character image, pattern matching operates. Only when the input glyph’s font and scale are identical to those of the stored glyph will pattern recognition be effective. Documents that have been scanned in work nicely with this technique.
Feature extraction
The glyphs are broken up into features during feature extraction. These attributes are then used to find the closest neighbor or the best match from the many stored glyphs.
Post Processing
After processing, the technology converts the retrieved text data into a digital file. Some OCR tools can provide annotated PDF files that include both the original and corrected versions of the scanned material.
Benefits of Using Optical Character Recognition in Business Workflows
OCR technology, a step toward digitization, offers both short-term and long-term advantages. By translating an image to text in this day and age, an OCR can increase the productivity of enterprises in the following ways:
1. Enhance Editing and Searching Features
When working with mountains of data files, search-ability is crucial. The performance of consumers or enterprises may cover in detail in a report that stores and contains thousands of pages. It can take a while to manually find the information and examine every page.
Using keywords, optical character recognition makes it easier to find the pertinent information on those pages. Transcribing documents is a thing of the past thanks to OCR, which makes it quick and easy to convert data into HTML, Word, or Excel formats. Then, it will be simple to amend any typos or copy and paste data.
2. Higher Employee Satisfaction and Engagement
An employee faces an unproductive problem when performing data entry, which is monotonous and repetitive work. Such jobs affect workers’ mental health in addition to producing incorrectly filed data.
OCR software does these jobs, which makes businesses happier. Employees who are able to concentrate on other tasks that need their attention. Additionally, happy employees enhance the brand’s reputation in the marketplace and propel it forward.
3. Document and Invoice Management
In the past, the majority of businesses maintained their data as hard copies or as a combination of physical copies and digital documents. It would be difficult for anyone to quickly and precisely obtain the data.
Documents can automatically scan and store as more firms embrace OCR. Systems using OCR technology will automatically index and categorize digital documents and data.
OCR makes it possible to quickly import data from hard-copy invoices into a digital version. It makes expense reconciliation simpler and more automatic.
Data centralizes and instantly accessible through the scanning of invoices. The payment processing departments will never be the same after this. OCR technology eases the strain, lowers error rates, and enables teams to work more efficiently.
4. Enhanced Asset Protection and Lower Material Costs
OCR software significantly lowers costs for organizations. Less paperwork translates to fewer personnel and lower training expenses. Second, because the files are in digital form, expensive filing cabinets don’t need to hold them.
The data contained in files or documents may loss due to natural calamities like theft and fire. However, storing them digitally shields clients and companies from these dangers. When it comes to safeguarding businesses against all types of malicious attempts and cyberattacks, an OCR solution shows promise.
5. Time-saving and streamlined data entry
Manual information retrieval from documents takes time and is prone to human error. Businesses can reduce costs by using OCR software, as they won’t need to pay a team to correct those errors manually. conserving time instead so that employees may attend to more critical responsibilities. Additionally, OCR lessens the likelihood of making any errors.
OCR not only enables businesses to transform text into editable form but also aids in workflow automation. For instance, the Document Management System (DMS) is to identify papers and send them to the appropriate people for processing. This reduces any disruption to regular business operations.
Final Say
Businesses are under pressure to implement effective solutions to safeguard the data of their customers due to the escalating number of ID thefts. Businesses may get the relevant information from ID documents using OCR technology, which helps with identity verification services. It demonstrates how OCR can be helpful to a variety of sectors. OCR keeps their record-keeping systems up to date effectively.
Punit