You can find it here if you still need to read the first part of this series. As promised, in today’s blog, we will explore the benefits of Optical Character Recognition, its current and future uses, and alternative alternatives.
OCR: Benefits of OCR
OCR technology automates tasks, saving time and money. This tool is great for industries that want to get good results quickly.
Most industries today are looking for OCR solutions to meet their business requirements and speed up the process. Covid-19 is a digital transformation tool that has become increasingly important to many businesses around the globe. OCR is a key component in automating tasks requiring less human interaction.
OCR (Optical character recognition) has many benefits.
Digitization OCR allows the digitization and conversion of printed documents, invoices, receipts, and passports. Searching for, storing, and sharing information from these materials is now easier.
Automation OCR automates tasks like invoice processing and data entry. It is faster and more efficient for processing large amounts of data.
Accessibility Improved: OCR makes printed documents and scanned files more accessible for people with vision impairments. This is done by allowing screen readers and other assistive technologies to read the documents aloud.
Searchability OCR allows you to search within documents for words and phrases. This makes it easier to locate the information that you are looking for.
Preservation: The OCR function can preserve historical documents, books, and newspapers. Archive documents that would otherwise be lost to decay or other issues.
Cost-effectiveness: OCR helps businesses and organizations to save money by reducing data entry and physical storage space for paper documents.
Multilingual support: OCR can extract text in various languages. This makes it an ideal tool for companies that deal with different languages.
OCR is an effective tool for accelerating workflows, minimizing costs, ensuring accessibility, and preserving information.
Let me explain some of the most important uses for OCR in industrial settings.
Use cases of OCR in various industries
Here are some industries that use OCR:
Healthcare OCR can be used to extract data from medical documents. This information can include a patient’s entire medical history, lab results, and insurance claims. It allows for faster and more efficient handling of patient data. This can improve the accuracy and precision of diagnosis and treatment plans.
Finance OCR can process financial documents like invoices, bank statements, and receipts. It allows faster processing and accurate data entry, improving accounting and financial management.
Law OCR can process legal documents, such as court transcripts, contracts, briefs, etc. This can improve legal research accuracy and allow for faster document management.
Retail OCR can process documents like purchase orders, shipping labels, and inventory lists. It allows for faster data entry, and it can improve retail operations.
Banking OCR can be used to scan and extract data from handwritten checks and verify the signature, allowing for real-time cheque clearing.
Government OCR can process many government documents, such as tax and voter registration forms. It can improve government efficiency and help provide better service to citizens.
Supply chain/Transportation: OCR is used to process shipping and logistics documents such as bills of lading and shipping manifests. It can improve transportation efficiency and allow for better tracking of shipments.
Here is a look into the future.
Future Use Cases of OCR
As OCR continues to develop, and with the high adoption rate by industries, we can expect to see it used in innovative and new ways soon.
Here are some future uses of OCR.
Handwriting Recognition: OCR Systems are expected to improve the ability to recognize handwriting or cursive text. This will allow for digitizing and processing a wide range of documents.
Intelligent document processing: OCR is expected to integrate with other technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This will allow the technology to understand and contextualize text and automate complex documents.
Automated Translation: OCR can extract texts from documents that can then be translated into other languages automatically. This will improve communication and help overcome language barriers.
Voice Recognition: OCR can be combined with speech recognition technologies to convert spoken words into written text automatically. It will improve accessibility for those with disabilities and make technology easier to use.
Here are a few future examples of OCR applications. As technology evolves and new ones are created, the possibilities will be endless.
Alternatives to OCR
There are many alternatives to the current technology.
1. ICR: ICR works similarly to OCR but is designed specifically to recognize handwriting. It uses advanced algorithms that analyze the style and shape of handwriting to recognize characters.
2. ICR/OCR: This technology is designed to recognize printed and handwritten texts.
3. Recognition of barcodes, QR codes, and other information: Technologies for barcode and QR-code recognition are used to extract data from these codes. This technology can be used for automating tasks, such as inventory management.
4. HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition).HTR is a handwritten text recognition technology. It is used for applications like digital pen and paper and document scanning.
5. Text recognition: Text recognition is a technology that converts spoken words into machine-encoded text. This technology can be used to increase accessibility and make it easier to use technology for people with disabilities.
6. ABBYY FlexiCapture is a commercial product that can replace OCR. ABBYY FineReader and Nuance OmniPage are also examples.
It is worth noting that, depending on how the document will be used, some of these alternatives may be combined with OCR to increase accuracy and efficiency.
In a nutshell: OCR is used in many industries. OCR technology is expected to continue to develop and be used in new ways as it advances. OCR has several alternatives, each with its benefits and drawbacks.