Guide to OCR Software

Optical character recognition software (or OCR software) works through your scanner to convert paper documents to digital files you can store, edit and find through search.  OCR scanner software helps sort mail in mailrooms and records paper invoices and claim forms. Untold millions of business cards collected at trade shows go into contact files through OCR software.  

Most likely, your scanner came with basic OCR software.  Do you need to amp up your optical character recognition software beyond that?  Probably yes, if you’re a big paper pusher. Some decision points to consider:

1.  Know the limits of OCR document scanning software. OCR software works fastest and most accurately on documents that are printed, are free of blurs or smudges, have type that’s 8 points or bigger and are consistently formatted (not switching from book pages to forms, for instance).  

2.  OCR software won’t eliminate humans.  For best results, somebody needs to set up scan jobs on OCR software. You may save a lot compared to manual data entry – if document scanning software works accurately on your types of documents and humans don’t have to go in to tidy up the text after.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Compare features of optical character recognition software

Check the websites of the leading OCR software brands to find your best fit. Compare specs on speed, accuracy (99% usually claimed), number of pages stored on a single document, numbers of languages besides English, special vocabularies for medical or legal documents, recognition of non-text pieces (handwriting, barcodes or graphs), ability to retain original layout, ability to interpret images from digital cameras, and compatibility with enterprise-wide document management systems and your network's operating system.

I recommend: Scan these major brands of optical character recognition software: OmniPage, I.R.I.S., Kofax, Kodak, Adobe and ABBYY.  Many makers offer a trial free OCR software download so you can see how you like the interface.

Try OCR free software

Google and others offer free OCR software download - so what have you got to lose?

I recommend: Get Tesseract OCR free software from Google or try SimpleOCR free software.

Look for OCR software for a specific need or type of business

Some optical character recognition software packages focus on one part of the paper trail, like the mailroom, or are specialized for the vocabularies and document layouts in law, medicine or other businesses.

I recommend: ReadSoft specializes in mail-room scanner software and Datacap in invoice document scanning software.  EMR4doctors makes OCR software for medical records.

Find alternatives to buying OCR scanner software

Before you buy that box of optical character recognition software, stop and ask if you need a bigger solution, a company wide document management system - they may come with OCR software built in. Or look into staying with manual data entry but outsourcing to cheap providers overseas. Finally, consider dumping your piles of paper on scanning and archiving specialist companies.

I recommend: HOV Services provides outsourced scanning and outsourced data entry.  Look for document management services and software at Business.com or at WebBuyersGuide.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Some OCR software packages can now interpret images from digital cameras so you can shoot and capture a document or even a sign on the spur of the moment. Accuracy will be lower than scanned documents.
• Interested mainly in optical character recognition software for business cards? You have a wide selection of specialized, small scanners with OCR software built in.
• Many businesses use optical character recognition software to help meet Sarbanes-Oxley rules on saving records.

The official source of OCR Software is the OCR Software page at Business.com