OCR’s invention traces back 100 years, right back to the 1920s. Since then, technology has come a long way, and it’s become one of the key factors in educational and business settings. Today, it’s available on our phones and computers.
So, how exactly does it work? And, what are its benefits in terms of saving time and maximizing productivity? Let’s find out.
What Is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, is the technology that allows us to extract images from texts. It uses specific algorithms to read, and then convert the scanned text into an editable format. How exactly can it do that? Has two factors that help it:
- NLP—allows OCR to read and process the text.
- Machine Learning—allows OCR to convert text by analyzing common patterns, marks, and signs, which formulate into words.
This allows OCR to convert any document into editable text— including handwritten or printed ones.
4 Ways Online OCR Can Save Time And Maximize Your Productivity?
Now without further ado, let’s dive right in and analyze the four ways OCR can save time and help you improve productivity. Productivity in the organization can only be done by saving time and hence cost. The time calculator minutes and hours provides insight into how much time you have saved by OCR tools.
Use Hard-Printed Docs In Virtual Settings
One of the first aspects of OCR that many businesses can benefit from is its ability to help you use hard-printed data. For instance, think about it, how many times does a business need to use documents that are either printed or written?
Now, how much time would be saved if that same data was available in a virtual form? That’s exactly why OCR is one of the easiest ways to use information in hard-printed forms. Now, what exactly does it mean? It could be various forms of printed text, such as:
- Bills and ledgers;
- Contracts and agreements;
- Receipts and other important documents.
So, if any of these documents are available in virtual settings, it’ll be easier for a company to use them. Not only will they be able to use that data frequently, but they’ll also be able to access it from anywhere—if stored on a cloud or mutual storage.
Save Your Important Data
Important data like receipts, bills and other documents are necessary to secure. However, saving them in their hard-printed or physical form doesn’t always work, as the paper is subject to age. That’s why it’s a particularly good idea to use OCR on older documents.
But why exactly is that? When you’re using documents on a daily basis, you’re subjecting them to crumples, wrinkles, and other signs of aging that might tear those papers apart. Now, if the same data was available in virtual form, as mentioned before, that would not happen.
That’s why OCR can be vital in saving and indexing your data. Here’s how:
- Scan older documents first, and place them in a mutually accessed storage for employees;
- Save your important data to be able to search and find important info quickly;
- Use saved data for leverage in future cases.
These factors are only a glimpse into the possibilities that OCR can afford you. It won’t only help you use information from these official papers, but it’ll also help save important info from ageing documents.
Thus, needing OCR to save the information and search and then use it easily is one of the best ways to describe its benefit in productivity.
Easily Use Information from Printed/Written Papers
Printed papers are one thing, but written papers are another. There are times when written papers are difficult to read and use/extract information from. That’s when a good quality OCR tool can save time and help you use information.
Because a tool with thorough usage of NLP and Machine Learning will be able to make words present in a written or printed paper. This technology is called IWR or intelligent word recognition, which allows a tool to:
- Recognize written or printed words;
- Recognize marks and signs;
- Analyze patterns to formulate an editable text.
However, you’re going to need a good-quality OCR tool for that. We suggested some online-OCR tools that are as follows:
- Image To Text Converter by Prepostseo
- Photo To Text Converter by Free-onlineocr
- Online Image To Text Converter by Avepdf
These are some of the best tools, renowned for their ability to churn out text from any sort of image. Here’s an example of an image-to-text conversion process using Prepostseo’s tool:
Source: https://www.prepostseo.com/image-to-text
As you can see here, the handwritten text is easily translated into virtual/editable text. Now, imagine all the documents, letters, or other sorts of handwritten text an organization can make use of with the help of OCR. It would help them:
- Be more productive (obviously);
- Help them use data from unreadable papers;
- Secure information from older/mature documents;
- Use text in documents easily.
This aspect of OCR is perhaps the most important out of any other. Simply because it allows you to improve your productivity by miles.
Digitalize Your Business
Once you have used all of your existing data and put it into a computer, you’ll realize how much easier it is to deal with business. That’s why, in the future, OCR can help you digitalize your business. Think about it, each time a receipt or document comes through, it goes straight into the scanner and then OCR.
Thus, when you make this a constant practice, this data will be safe and secure on your computer storage, servers, or cloud storage. How will that help you digitalize your business? Let’s map it out for you:
- Each time a document is printed/received, it’ll go through OCR to save it in virtual format.
- The information extracted from the document will be accessed by employees (relevant ones).
- Employees across the board will easily search and use information in new and old documents.
- Help you secure your important information in both written/printed and virtual form.
These factors of OCR should tell you how it can maximize your productivity moving forward. Because OCR doesn’t need to be a technology you use to make the most of your older documents. Instead, it should be a part of your organization to improve productivity in times to come.
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Conclusion
These are the key factors that allow you to understand how exactly OCR can maximize productivity. It’s not only an essential factor to help you stand out against your competition but also improves productivity among your employees and encourages the betterment of your business.
