In most businesses this situation happens: the boss offers a hardcopy of a specific document that has to be updated. In order to do this, the document is typed into the computer and then printed again. This is time-consuming and the employee would be much better suited to do something else for the business.
Fortunately, a solution does exist: using optical character recognition (OCR). This is a technology that is offered by countless providers, like Smartengines, and gives access to the possibility of drastically reducing the time needed to perform situations like the one mentioned above.
What Is Optical Character Recognition?
OCR is practically software technology you use in order to convert a scanned document into a document that includes readable and searchable text that can be edited, copied and practically changed, just as you do with a regular Word document.
What Are The Advantages Of OCR?
OCR technology is highly advantageous for businesses from all around the world. It offers the possibility to easily edit documents that are in printed format by turning them into digital copies. This brings in advantages like the following:
- Au Revoir Retyping
Nobody wants to waste a lot of time at the keyboard, working to recreate documents in scanned or printed format. Time is saved as all these image files are converted into editable and searchable text with the use of OCR programs.
- Fast Digital Searches
When you convert the scanned text into word processing files, OCR allows you to search with the use of phrases or keywords. This is highly advantageous in some cases. For instance, let’s say you have countless invoices. The PC search feature is all you need to find all the invoices that are associated with a specific client.
- Adding New Text
Whenever you need the document’s image to work just like real text, so you can add paragraphs, paste and remove some old references, this is simple with the use of OCR. The technology is perfect for everything you might need, from contract updating to archiving numerous family recipes your grandmother let you.
- Saving Physical Space
When you use many paper documents in your business, you know how much space can be occupied by it. If you use OCR software, space is no longer a problem. This is because you scan all the papers into PDF format and retrieve all text you might need to eventually work with. Large file cabinets are no longer necessary and all you need is a digital storage medium, like a CD or a hard drive.
- Accessibility
When people that are vision-impaired need to read something, OCR helps by turning all printed documents into highly accessible files. They can actually be turned into an audio format by combining computer voice-over software with word processing software.
As you can easily notice, OCR technology is very beneficial for practically all businesses. Whenever a paper is involved, making the switch to digital formats saves time and money. It also makes the entire business much more effective, which is a huge advantage that should not be neglected.
