Microsoft Azure – Using Azure Form Recognizer

In this article, we will learn how to extract information with Azure Form Recognizer. Programmatically extracting information from images and documents is complex and requires complex machinery, learning models. Azure Form Recognizer can help with this, with pre-trained machine learning models that can recognize information on documents, receipts, and invoices. 

Implementation:

Follow the below steps to extract information from receipts with Azure For Recognizer:

Step 1: Create one, search for a form recognizer, and create it.

 Step 2: First, we’ll select a resource group. We’ll leave the region and fill in a name. Also, select a pricing tier. The free tier is also fine. 

Step 3: Here we are in the Form Recognizer. To use it, we need connection details. We need the key and also the endpoint. Copy those and move on.

Step 4: Now, we’ll test Form Recognizer with a sample image. Take a sample receipt, and we do that in the Form Recognizer Sample Tool. This is a website that enables us to test Form Recognizer without building an application. Form Recognizer can use a pre-built machine learning model. We can also train it ourselves with a completely custom model or by using the layout service. We will use the pre-built models. 

Step 5: First, we’ll put in the key and also the endpoint that we copied earlier. Here select “URL”. Azure use a URL for the sample receipt image, as that is what we will analyze. Fetch it, and you can see that this tool creates an API request that it sends to the Form Recognizer service. Let’s run it.

Step 6: In the image there, we see that it recognized most things. Here in the details, we see that as well. It even recognized the total tax for instance, and it gives confidence percentages that we can use in our application.

Step 7: Let’s set this to receipt. This will use a slightly different model to analyze the image. Take a look and we will see, here is, the details of the amount. It recognized it with the receipt model. 

Step 8: When we use this in an application, we’ll receive all this information in JSON format from the API, which we can also download from here.

Azure Form Recognizer removes the complexity of automatically analyzing and recognizing documents, receipts, and invoices. We can use it as a REST API and with SDKs for several languages.