Document scanning and conversion services has made a huge contribution in effectively tackling the crisis condition of extreme paper usage and cutting down of trees on the planet. Digitizing crucial documents in an easy yet efficient manner has truly helped to keep our planet safe and also enhance business development and productivity in every type of industries.
There is hardly an industry which doesn’t use various types of digital document conversion services to manage their documentation system.
OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a particular style of scanning process where a scanned electronic image is converted into fully searchable and editable format using OCR software. OCR automates conversion of millions of text based image files which can then be searched by word or character. Useful for large scale digitization of text based materials, OCR is used for books, journals, magazines, newspapers and so on.
Limitations of OCR Scanning:
OCR scanning services though has a lot of benefits but it has some limitations which again depends on a lot of different factors. One of the major drawbacks of OCR technology is when the source files are old and faded. It becomes really difficult for the OCR software to recognize faded characters which radically influences the end result.
Apart from documents, if OCR scanning services is applied on microfilms that are poor quality, old, skewed or has scratches, the resultant files cannot recognize characters successfully and thus, disturbing the later search operations done on them.
Here is a list of the type of source materials on which OCR scanning cannot be applied successfully:
For Printed Materials:
● Large Scale highly complex drawings
● Documents with variable fonts and styles on the Same Page
● Narrow space between lines and columns
● Handwritten scripts or Signatures
● Misprinted Characters
● Deteriorated Ink or Aged and Fragile Papers
● Irregular Alignment of Characters on the Same Page
For Microfilms:
● Poor quality of second or third generation films
● Blurred text and image files
● Full of Noise, dirt and scratches
● Broken Lines and Characters
● More than Twenty Years Old Microfilm Reel
Manipulated Image Files:
Manipulation of an image file usually occurs much before the OCR scanning process starts. Image files can be manipulated while scanning the original document or with standalone software programs. So, to get excellent results from OCR scanning services, the manipulation on the image files should be rectified properly. Some of the advised manipulation includes:
● De-Skew Page and Column Spaces
● Remove Noise, dirt and Scratches
● Adjust Density Level
● Smoothing, Rounding, Sharpening Characters
● Contract the Colour of the Image (both Black and White and Bi-tonal)
Digitizing files with OCR scanning services does yield numerous benefits but at times when the files are processed, it is also necessary to assure the percentage of accuracy in the OCR results as it will drastically affect the success rate of search operations in the long term. An accuracy level of 98% is normally considered ‘good’.
Looking for a cost-effective OCR scanning company. Contact or email at info@documentscanning.co.in.
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