What is OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and How does it work ?

[savio]

Hi,

I know some what about OCR and I have used the software like ABBYY FineReader for converting PDF files into word. But can some one explain me in detail, What is OCR and How does it work ? thanks in advance ....

[blindsleeper]

The OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a text recognition software that takes an image that contains text and transforms it into strings and store them in a format that can be used in text editing programs. When we have an image (either a photo or document that we scan), the text that contains a part of that image, like any element of it (a drawing or outline, for example). Well, if we need to extract the text so you can edit, we need an OCR program to recognize the text and transform it into a string (either ASCII or Unicode) and then copy this string to an editing program to already be working with it, thus saving time by not having to type this text.

[Rasdasa]

It is the type of software that takes care of OCR characters. It is responsible for removing an image of text characters and save them in a format that can be edited as text. Serves, for example, save as text images scanned from a book without passing it by hand, or typing character by character in a text editor. The software is relatively reliable but often fail if the images or letters are not clear. It is a kind of recognition as are voice recognition, brand recognition (OMR), handwriting recognition, etc..

[Valerian]

ICR, OCR and OMR are all methods designed to decrease the amount of manual data entry form processing environments. OCR technology gives scanning reproduction systems and imaging systems the ability to convert images of characters in a font of machine in traits that can be read or recognized by a computer. Thus, images of characters in a font of machine are extracted from a bitmap image reproduced by the scanner.

[Dammit]

OCR-system is very easy to use. Simply just 3 steps:

• You insert a document into the scanner;
  
  
• Click "Scan and read";
  
  
• And the recognized text appears in a text editor (eg, MS Word).

If you you do not have a scanner, you will come to the aid of a digital camera or mobile phone with a camera:

• You photograph a document or part of the document;
  
  
• You just plug the camera to the computer and press the button "Get the picture and recognize";
  
  
• And the recognized text appears in a text editor (eg, MS Word).

Pretty simple! You save your time and effort to reprint the text!

[SergioSantos]

The software for optical character recognition, usually abbreviated as OCR (Optical Character Recognition), drawn from a picture the characters that comprise a text for storage in a format which can interact with text editing programs. While the characters in an image described specifying each of the pixels that form, when converted to text format (eg ASCII or Unicode), pass to be described by a single number, so there is a significant eduction in space memory they occupy.