Data extraction has never been easier than before. Many businesses usually deal with a high volume of documents and textual data. But here's the aid: Optical Character Recognition (OCR)!
OCR is a game-changer when scanning printed documents, extracting text from images, or automating data entry. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global OCR market size is expected to grow from $7.9 billion in 2021 to $13.4 billion by 2026, along with an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2%.
But what is it, how does it work, and how is it used? Well, we are going to cover all that. So, let's have a clean look over it.
What is OCR?
OCR converts documents, such as scanned paper, PDF files, or images, into machine-editable and searchable data. In easy words, OCR software scans the text on these documents and translates it into machine-readable text to automate data entry. Leading OCR providers, like Google Cloud Vision OCR and Microsoft Azure OCR, boast character recognition accuracy rates of over 99%.
How OCR Technology Works
OCR technology uses various techniques to recognize and extract text from images. It goes through a sequential process from extracting to converting. Let's understand the process step by step:
Step 1: Image Preprocessing: First, it enhances the quality of the image with de-skewing, noise reduction, and contrast adjustment to improve recognition accuracy.
Step 2: Text Detection: Next, it identifies the text regions within the image and separates them from the background.
Step 3: Text Recognition: After analyzing the text within the identified regions, it recognizes each character and word. This step involves comparing the shapes of characters in the image to a database of known characters.
Step 4: Text Output: Finally, the recognized text is extracted and converted into machine-readable formats, such as plain text, searchable PDFs, or structured data, in order to automate data entry.
Applications of OCR Technology
OCR technology has multiple applications across various industries. Mostly, it is used to extract data from documents to ditch manual data entry work. Many bookkeepers, freelancers, accountants, and small businesses use OCR-powered accounting software such as Receipt Bot to automate their work.
They can easily keep records of all the daily expenses or transactions with intelligent OCR. Here are some notable examples in which OCR has proven to be highly effective:
1. Converting physical documents into digital formats
2. Automate data entry processes
3. To make images and scanned documents searchable
4. To create text-to-speech software and assistive technology
5. To extract data from invoices and receipts
Bottom Line: How To Access OCR Technology
Use Receipt Bot to utilize the power of advanced OCR technology. It comes with our receipt scanning app, which captures invoices with quick scans to extract data. You can also use it to extract data from your PDF bank statements to Excel. Want to know how it works? Visit receipt-bot.com to learn more about it.
This data needs to be managed effectively so that it can be utilized as needed.
To make data entry process efficient and accurate, certain guidelines must be followed.1.
Focus on Useful Data: As we all know, data entry is a time-consuming process, so the focus has to be placed on the data that is most useful to the organization.
The documents that aren’t useful or don’t contain any useful information have to be removed.
Not focusing on unnecessary data saves time during the operator’s day.2.
These methods can be explained as follows:Cluster Analysis: Clustering involves identifying common groups and analyzing them for errors.
