Advantages and Disadvantages of Optical character Reader (OCR)

Optical character Reader (OCR) helps in differentiating presence of characters by their shapes. OCR is employed as data input device to read numeric and alphanumeric characters from pre-printed documents produced by printers, type-writers etc. 

Level of accuracy to scan characters accurately is based on how clear writing is. Scanners are improved to be ready to read different styles and sizes of text also as neat handwriting. There is utmost accuracy in the text scanned with OCR but then also there is the need to check as some letters are often misread. OCR is employed to automatically recognize postcodes on letters at sorting offices. 

In OCR, scanner is provided with character recognition software which converts bitmap images of characters to equivalent ASCII codes. First step in whole process is to create bitmap of image of document then with help of software OCR translates the array of grid points into ASCII text which pc can understand and process it as letters, numbers and special characters. 

OCR software process bitmap of every character and compares it with set of characters which machine has been programmed to acknowledge to translate bitmaps into text, Whichever character pattern it matches or nearly matches, is taken into account to be character read. If a scanned character doesn’t match with any of the already stored character patterns, it’s rejected. 

Advantages of Optical character Reader (OCR) :
Following are the advantages or advantages of OCR : 

• Information of OCR can be readable with high degree of accuracy. Flatbed scanners are very accurate and may produce reasonably top quality images.
• Processing of OCR information is fast. Large quantities of text are often input quickly.
• A paper based form are often became an electronic form which is straightforward to store or send by mail.
• It is cheaper than paying someone amount to manually enter great deal of text data. Moreover it takes less time to convert within the electronic form.
• The latest software can re-create tables also as original layout.
• This process is much faster as compared to the manual typing the information into the system
• Advanced version can even Re create tables, columns and even produce sites.

Disadvantages of Optical character Reader (OCR) :
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of OCR : 

• OCR text works efficiently with the printed text only and not with handwritten text. Handwriting must be learnt by the pc.
• OCR systems are expensive.
• There is the need of lot of space required by the image produced.
• The quality of the image can be lose during this process.
• Quality of the ultimate image depends on quality of the first image.
• All the documents got to be checked over carefully then manually corrected.
• Not 100% accurate, there are likely to be some mistakes made during the method.
• Not worth doing for little amounts of text.