How Manual Data Entry Process is Digitized Using OCR Technology

Manual Data Entry is tiresome and takes more resources for businesses, the process can be digitized utilizing OCR Technology that can automate papers robustly.

Adding numerous figures manually seems to be outdated as there are calculators. Likewise, every process is transformed due to technological improvements. Now people use the machine for doing their daily tasks be it washing clothes or making a call. Manual working is considered old school in this updated world. Similarly, OCR technology is used for data entry and extraction.

OCR Technology

OCR is a character recognition tool used for extracting texts from images. Optical Character Recognition OCR technology is an artificially intelligent software that can convert paper documents into machine-readable. There is no constraint on the type of data or language. Not all the data is in a structured form, it can create trouble for other software but not for OCR for data entry. It can capture data from semi-structured also.

OCR can understand all languages. It can digitize multilingual documents at the same time as it automates single language documents.

The digitized documents solve numerous problems for businesses like:

Storage

Paper documents or files are very tough to keep as it takes physical storage. Businesses have to arrange buildings or warehouses to store them. When there is a new data bundle, it requires a separate area for it.

Editing 

Texts or words written on hard documents can’t be edited. To alter a single character, one needs to erase and rewrite the new word on it. This can damage the document’s beauty. Also, data can’t be either multiple times.

Searching

Data search is the toughest job if it comes to paper documents. Finding a customer name from account books can take hours depending on the size of the files. If more than one customer requests his record in a day, it can be a larger problem. It takes more manual effort for searching purposes. 

OCR saves businesses from the above problems by making papers computerized. Digital papers have the following benefits:

• Thousands of files can be stored in a small flash drive
• Every search is just one click away
• Edit can be done without harming the document
• The data is more secure 
• It can be copied easily
• Sending documents is much easier and fast

How OCR Scanner Extracts Data?

OCR is capable of extracting data from handwritten and computer typed documents. A document can be digitized by uploading an image of it to the OCR software. 

Here is the procedure for how information is retrieved from paper documents through OCR technology:

Deskew

The images uploaded to the OCR software can be improperly aligned. It can also have crumpled and folded edges. For efficient data extraction results, the image is first vertically and horizontally corrected. In deskew, the image is tilted so that data location areas can be identified easily.

Furthermore, the image is smoothened and dark spots are removed. Some images have high light exposure or black dots which can create trouble during extracting. The image quality depends upon the camera results. Usually, images given to the OCR software are clicked through normal cameras. These cameras do not capture good images.

Binarization

OCR has better results on grey-scale (black and white) pictures, the colored images are converted into images with white backgrounds and black fonts. Binarization is used for this purpose.

Pattern Recognition

OCR works on the matrix matching algorithm. First, it identifies what is the design of the document. Then it locates the areas where texts are written. It isolates the areas where words are written and where not. 

This technique is more helpful for handwritten documents. As data on these documents are not properly written, there is no specific rule where to write data and where to not. 

Feature Extraction

Pattern recognition works efficiently on single language papers. But when it comes to multilingual documents the efficiency reduces. Instead of locating the whole area, it focuses on lines and intersections.

Summing it Up

The accuracy of OCR during data extraction is much higher than other methods. OCR for business is a service that can automate a large number of documents robustly. OCR can save huge business resources that were spent on manual data entry.