OCR (optical character recognition) is a technology that uses digital images of real-world documents, including scanned paper documents, to identify printed or handwritten text characters. OCR’s fundamental procedure entails reading a document’s text and converting the characters into a code that may be used for data processing. OCR is also used as text recognition on occasion. OCR image to text converters, which combine hardware and software and helps to extract text from images, are used to transform physical documents into text that can be read by computers. Hardware is used to copy or read data, such as an optical scanner or specialized circuit board, whereas software normally does sophisticated processing. may also benefit from the implementation of more sophisticated techniques for intelligent character recognition using artificial intelligence (AI).
In this article, we will get to know what is OCR.
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Legal and historical documents are most frequently converted into PDFs using the OCR technique. Once the document is in this soft copy, users can edit, format, and search it just like they would if they were using a word processor.
Procedure For Optical Character Recognition:
Using a scanner, a document’s physical shape is processed as the initial stage in OCR. The manuscript is transformed into a two-color, or black and white, version once all pages have been copied using OCR software. The scanned-in image to text or bitmap is examined for bright and dark parts, with the light areas being classified as background and the dark areas as characters that need to be recognized. To find alphabetic letters or numeric digits, additional processing is then applied to the dark areas. Although the methods used by OCR applications can differ, they typically focus on one character, word, or block of text at a time. Then, one of two algorithms is used to identify the characters:
Pattern Recognition:
OCR photo to text conversion algorithms compare and identify characters in the scanned document using examples of text in different fonts and formats that have been supplied to the computer. OCR software uses feature detection to identify characters in scanned documents by applying rules unique to the characteristics of a certain letter or integer. The number of angled lines, crossing lines, or curves in a character could constitute characteristics for comparison. For instance, two diagonal lines meeting in the middle of a horizontal line may be used to represent the capital letter “A.”
Optical Character Recognition Use Cases:
OCR can be used for a variety of applications, including:
- Also used for the printed documents Scanning into versions that can be edited with word processors, like Microsoft Word or Google Docs.
- Deciphering documents into text that can be read aloud to visually-impaired or blind users.
- Archiving historic information, such as newspapers, magazines, or phonebooks, into searchable formats.
- It can also be used for electronically depositing checks even when there is no need for it. Placing important, signed legal documents into an electronic database. Sorting letters for mail delivery.
- To convert image to text online. Use cases for optical character recognition
Other Purposes:
Creating editable digital copies of printed papers using word processors like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, preparing print content for search engine indexing, and automating data entry, and processing during extraction. It can also be used for converting written documents into text that blind or visually impaired persons can hear read aloud, convert image to text online, and preserving historical data in searchable formats, such as old newspapers, periodicals, or phone books.
