Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text.
OCR is a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and machine vision. Though academic research in the field continues, the focus on OCR has shifted to implementation of proven techniques. Optical character recognition (using optical techniques such as mirrors and lenses) and digital character recognition (using scanners and computer algorithms) were originally considered separate fields. Because very few applications survive that use true optical techniques, the OCR term has now been broadened to include digital image processing as well.
10 Most Popular OCR Software
1. OmniPage
Allows business professionals to achieve new levels of productivity by eliminating the manual reproduction of documents OmniPage Professional gives business professionals the possibility to achieve new levels of productivity by removing the manual reproduction of documents.
2. ABBYY ScanTo Office
ABBYY ScanTo Office is a scan conversion utility that converts paper to electronic documents.
3. FineReader Professional Edition
Award-winning Document and PDF Conversion Application.
4. Readiris Pro 11
OCR software converts your images and pdf documents to editable files.
5. SimpleOCR
OCR application & Royaly-free SDK–convert document images to text/word.
6. Zonal OCR
Zonal OCR is the process by which Optical Character Recognition (OCR) applications “read” specifically zoned text from a scanned image. Many batch document imaging applications allow the end user to identify and draw a “zone” on a sample image to be recognized. Once the zone has been established on the sample image, this zone will be applied to each image processed so that the data can be extracted from the image file and converted to a ASCII format.
Zonal OCR helps to automate data extraction from digital images. However, zonal OCR, and OCR in general, is not entirely accurate and review of the extracted data will be required.
7. ViewWise
Computhink’s ViewWise provides Document Management Solutions that integrate into your existing infrastructure, supplying the missing piece of the puzzle for secure information sharing and compliance, targeting small and medium size organizations. Computhink’s ViewWise streamlines business processes, improves customer service, reduces costs and ensures compliance.
8. Microsoft Office Document Imaging
Document imaging brings the two worlds of online and paper together in a way that can help make you more productive. With Microsoft Office Document Imaging, you can not only scan a document (eliminating the need for the paper copy), but you can also work with a scanned document or a fax as easily as other Microsoft Office documents on your computer.
9. TopOCR
Contains both an editor/viewer and a word processor for saving and editing which includes an interactive spell checker.
10. ReadSoft
ReadSoft DOCUMENTS frees you from manually taking care of your business documents.
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