5 Major Practical Applications of OCR Technology

Making static and non-editable data editable is the primary benefit of OCR technology. A lot of incredible applications stem from this primary feature of the OCR.

Let’s go over some of the primary features and benefits that Optical Character Recognition has to offer.

Better Searchability & Edibility

When you scan a file and extract out text from it, you can save it in any format that you want zincluding.pdf, .doc, .txt, etc.This makes the searchability of the data much easier and simpler for you.

If you save the same data in the form of images, you won’t be able to easily search it which has a huge impact on the accessibility of crucial information. Along with easy searchability, you also get easy editability with OCR. You can save an image as an editable text file and make changes to it as per your requirement.

Once you extract out the text using OCR technology, you can easily make changes to it using a standard word processor.

Easier Audit of Business Documents

Another important application of OCR technology is the digitization of Digital Documents. And the benefits become even more prominent in terms of auditing business documents.

If you have a printed business document and you want to make sure that it matches the digital records, you can scan it using OCR software and compare it with your digital records.

And this works for all kinds of businesses. It is a great technology that can help you identify and catch any kind of irregularities in your important business documents.

With OCR, an old business can digitize its documents and streamline its data storing processes. OCR is what makes this possible for you. As long as the business document has text properly and written on it, the OCR can identify it and help facilitate the audit process.

Real-Time Text Translation

OCR-based tools also help users translate a text into one of the supported languages in real-time. This feature is valuable for tourists and can help them easily navigate in the areas where they are not familiar with the native languages.

Even if you are a student who loves to learn new stuff, you can use the OCR tools to instantly translate any given text into a language that you want.

The real-time translation features are completely changing the way we used to see OCR technologies. And as these technologies become more common, people all over the world are going to recognize the power and utility of this technology.

Helps Save Time & Storage

With OCR, the process of character recognition gets automated. When you have to manually digitize a document and type everything with your hand, it can take you hours and even weeks depending on the amount of data that you have to digitize.

With OCR technology, you can digitize the same data in a few hours that would take you a week or a month to do manually.

And when you digitize the data, it takes less storage space in the physical world.

Since everything gets stored in the hard drive, you don’t need to set aside a space for storing the physical copies of the documents. So, OCR helps you save time and make the most out of the document storage space as well.

Applications in Healthcare

Healthcare Institutions in the past used to store all the information on paper files. And when it comes to looking up these files such as patient history manually, it takes a lot of time.

OCR technology is helping a lot in healthcare by allowing the industry to digitize their documents and records for better searchability. This allows healthcare centers to unify all their information and quickly and easily extract the info that they need.

Based on the insights from these files, healthcare specialists can make better decisions about the treatment for their patients.

And now, hospitals all around the world are turning towards digital record storage because of the massive ease of access that they get through it. In this regard, OCR is helping to turn previous paper-based records into digital ones.

End Notes

The OCR technology has numerous applications in various fields. Almost all the tech giants are working on OCR to introduce new features to their customers.

The Google Lens by Google and Bixby Vision by Samsung are some of the examples of the popular OCR-based apps that you can find out there.

Although OCR technology has come a long way over the years, there is still a lot of room for improvement in it. We expect this technology to get a lot better in the upcoming years.