Understand What is OCR goes far beyond knowing how this system works in practice, but understanding how this technology can help your company manage documents.
Technology, which became popular in the 90s for transforming newspapers and printed documents into digital files, got a new look with the growth of artificial intelligence.
Today, this is one of the main ways to transform images and documents into editable, searchable, and catalogable files, being essential for many modern businesses.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that converts images of typed, handwritten, or printed text into machine-encoded text, either from a scanned document, a photo of a document, an in-scene photograph, or superimposed text from an annotation in an image.
Actio’s OCR Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that uses automated data extraction to convert images of text into a machine-readable file.
Basically, OCR software extracts and reuses data from different types of documents, physical or digital, such as camera images and PDFs.
This software recognizes words present in images, extracts them, and allows access to and editing of the original content.
The OCR system emerged in 1974, with the founding of Kurzweil Computer Products by Ray Kurzweil, and it enabled digitization of any print, regardless of the source.
However, it only became popular in 1990 with the digitization of historical newspapers. Currently, this system has taken a leap in improvement, offering almost perfect precision digitization.
How does OCR work?
OCR software uses software to scan and digitize documents and images and transform them into an editable file.
For physical files, a scanner is needed to transform the file into something accessible, but in the case of digital files, software is enough to transform that document, photo, or image into an editable file.
The process for using an OCR is as follows:
- Screenshot The software receives the image, whether it's a photo, a scan, a printout, or a PDF;
- Preprocessing: The system improves the image by adjusting contrast and removing noise to facilitate the separation of the background and text.;
- Segmentation The software divides the image into parts, separating blocks of text, lines, words, and characters.;
- Character recognition the system compares the visual patterns found, separating shapes and recognizing letters;
- Context Interpretation OCR recognizes isolated characters, forming words and phrases, correcting possible errors.;
- Finalized text: Finally, the file is converted into digital text, which can be copied, searched, and edited.
Current systems still count on Artificial Intelligence to speed up the process, acting on character detection and context interpretation.
What are the types of OCR files?
Currently, there are 4 distinct types of OCR, the simplest being optical mark recognition (OMR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), and intelligent word recognition.
Basically, your differences are:
- Simple OCR: recognizes printed characters in images and documents and transforms them into editable text;
- Optical mark recognitionidentifies filled marks in specific fields, such as circles, checkboxes, or squares;
- Intelligent character recognition uses artificial intelligence to interpret letters and numbers written in different ways;
- Intelligent word recognition recognizes whole words instead of analyzing only character by character.
The benefits of OCR software
The benefits of OCR software are linked to the transformation of physical or scanned documents into editable files and the reduction of manual labor.
To summarize, the benefits of these OCR softwares include:
- Reduction of manual labor reduces the need to manually enter information, saving time and reducing operational effort;
- More agility in processes: documents that used to need to be read and transcribed by people can be processed much faster;
- Fewer typos: By automating data capture, OCR reduces common human errors in repetitive tasks.;
- Ease of searching for information: Texts extracted by OCR become searchable, allowing for easier retrieval of specific words, numbers, names, or data.;
- Digitization and organization of documents: helps companies convert physical files into digital documents, facilitating storage, classification, and access;
- Increased productivity teams can dedicate less time to operational tasks and more time to strategic activities;
- Integration with other systems: The extracted data can be sent to ERPs, CRMs, spreadsheets, financial systems, or management platforms.;
- Better information control and security: Digitized documents can be stored with access permissions, backups, and traceability.
In summary, OCR software makes the faster document management, efficient, and reliable, contributing to process automation and the reduction of operational costs.
How Christopher Bishop Says in Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, Intelligent OCR systems use probabilistic classification to interpret document patterns and infer categories from statistical evidence.
How does AI assist OCR?
The integration of AI with OCR It facilitated the analysis process and creation of editable files. With this, while OCR identifies characters more rigidly, AI analyzes context and different writing styles and fonts.
With this, AI helps OCR understand texts with greater accuracy, interpret handwriting, understand the context of words, improve images before reading, and automatically classify documents.
Some modern OCR models, like ABBYY or the Microsoft already have integrated AI, assisting in the transcription process. In these cases, the system is also known as ICR.
In management, while OCR provides file data, AI Work the information to generate insights for management, collaborating with document management and facilitating decision-making.
And this partnership doesn't need to be limited to the OCR system, but can also be perceived outside of it.
For example, in Actio's Document Management solution, in the AI agents integrated allow managers Collect the data present OCR document and process this information with ease, generating reports and insights for management.
How to do Document Management with OCR?
To make a Document management with OCR means transforming physical documents, scanned PDFs, and images into digital information that can be searched, organized, and used in corporate processes.
To do this, physical or digital files must be transformed into editable and searchable documents by OCR software. This way, the company will have structured information, allowing it to easily find and classify files.
This model is especially useful for companies dealing with contracts, forms, regulatory evidence, audit documents, checklists, receipts, notes, reports, and operational records.
With OCR, the document ceases to be just a stored file and starts generating data that can feed workflows, controls, audits, indicators, and compliance processes.
A common architecture for this type of management is:
Document, PDF, or image → Specialized OCR → Structured text and metadata → Document management and governance platform
In this way, OCR acts as an information capture and extraction tool, while document management organizes, controls, and tracks the use of these documents within the company.
How does Actio help your Document Management?
Actio is the ecosystem that gives purpose to data extracted by OCR, being the intelligence that directs this data towards the success of your corporate strategy.
Currently, the platform is not a specialized native OCR solution, meaning it does not act as its own document auto-reading engine.
Your focus is on integrated corporate management, connecting strategy, risks, performance, processes, and people on a single platform, with data centralization and process automation.
In practice, this means that the Actio can receive, store, organize, and manage documents within the company's processes.
Through its solution Document Management of Actio, The platform supports document control, attachments, evidence, audits, approval workflows, traceability, and integration with other management areas.
In other words, OCR allows your documents to be editable, and Actio ensures they are well-managed, which guarantees a good workflow for your document management.
This way, OCR reads and structures the data, while Actio organizes, controls, and transforms this information into traceable, auditable processes connected to company management.
Discover how Actio can help transform your static files into documents that support high performance in your management. Speak with one of our consultants to learn about Actio's Document Management Module.
