What is Optical Character Recognition?

How are paper documents actually digitized?

One option is to manually transfer the documents into the computer by simply typing them. However, this requires a lot of time and typing errors.

A much faster method is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This involves first creating an image of the document in paper form using a scanner or camera. OCR technology is then used to extract the document's content from the image and convert it into editable and searchable files.

What exactly is Optical Character Recognition?

OCR is a process of converting text from images (typed, handwritten or printed) into machine-readable text documents. So, in simple terms, OCR is a method of recognizing text from images and scanned documents.

Where is OCR applied?

OCR is the foundation of many digitization processes, as there is often a need to convert analog documents into digital formats. In combination with robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI), OCR thus enables the automation of document-based workflows.

In addition, OCR technology is used, for example, in the dispatch of letters and parcels in order to sort them. Another example of the use of OCR technology is the automatic reading of license plate numbers on speed camera photos. In addition, more and more smartphones can automatically read and convert texts from photos.

At claimflow, we also use OCR as the first step in our digital document processing. In the next step, we use our own AI to understand the content of the recognized text and further process the extracted information.

Sources: Bots and People and IBM (translated)