Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software helps convert non-editable document formats such as PDFs, images, or paper documents into editable and searchable machine-readable formats.
OCR applications are commonly used to capture text from PDFs and images and convert the text into editable formats such as Word, Excel or plain text files. OCR is also used to digitize files and documents, making them searchable.
OCR software utilizing AI/ML capabilities can also help in automatically capturing data from scanned documents/images. AI-based OCR can digitize data in a convenient, editable format that fits into an organization's workflow.
Scanning and processing documents such as invoices, receipts and images for valuable data has traditionally been a manual process fraught with errors and delays. OCR software solutions help businesses save time and resources that would otherwise be spent on data entry and manual verification/validation.
More and more organizations are automating document processing workflows to go paperless and leveraging cloud-based digital solutions to improve profits.
Let's take a look at some of the best OCR software and check out some free OCR software.
What is OCR and what does OCR software do?
OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a technology that recognizes and recognizes text in scanned documents, photos or images. OCR software utilizes this technology to extract data from PDF or scanned documents, convert it into machine-readable text data, which can be more easily edited and stored for further processing. See this guide for a detailed explanation of OCR and its use cases.
OCR is also used in a variety of other use cases, such as extracting tables from PDFs, extracting text from images, or extracting text from PDFs or other non-editable formats.
Today, OCR software is used in automated data entry, pattern recognition, text-to-speech services, search engine indexing documents, cognitive computing, text mining, critical data and machine translation, and a variety of other applications. These tools can convert any scanned document, PDF or image type into xml, xlsx or csv files.
The Best OCR Software for Your Business
Let's take a look at some of the best OCR software on the market.
1. Geek Free OCR
Geek Free OCR is an AI-based OCR software that automatically captures data for smart document processing of invoices, receipts, ID cards, etc. Geek Free OCR uses advanced OCR, machine learning image processing and deep learning to extract relevant information from unstructured data. It's fast, accurate, easy to use, allows users to build custom OCR models from scratch, and has some neat integrations. Digitize documents, extract data fields, and integrate with your everyday applications in a simple and intuitive interface online.
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2.ABBYY Flexicapture
FlexiCapture is a robust, scalable document imaging and data extraction software that automatically transforms documents of any structure, language or content into usable and accessible business-ready data.
3.ABBYY Finereader
ABBYY FineReader PDF is an OCR software that supports PDF file editing. The program allows converting image documents into editable electronic formats.
4. Kofax Full Page
Omnipage is a powerful PDF OCR software that can automate high-volume enterprise OCR tasks. This tool is dedicated to table extraction, line item matching and smart extraction.
5.IBM Datacap
Datacap simplifies the capture, identification and classification of business documents to extract important information from them. Datacap has a powerful OCR engine, multiple functions, and customizable rules. It works across multiple channels, including scanners, mobile devices, multifunction peripherals and faxes.
6. Google Docs AI
Document AI (DocAI), one of the solutions in the Google Cloud AI suite, is a document processing console that uses machine learning to automatically classify, extract, enrich data, and unlock insights in documents.
7. AWS text
AWS Textract uses machine learning and OCR to automatically extract text and other data from scanned documents. It is also used to identify, understand and extract data from forms and forms. For more information, check out AWS Textract's detailed breakdown.
8. Document Parser
Docparser is a cloud-based document processing and OCR software that automates low-value tasks and workflows for businesses.
9. Adobe Acrobat DC
Adobe offers a comprehensive PDF editor with built-in OCR functionality.
10. Kripa
Klippa provides automated document management, processing, classification and data extraction solutions to digitize paper documents in organizations.
Here is a quick comparison of some key OCR software features and parameters of all the OCR software listed above:
Main OCR software function comparison
How does Geek OCR stand out as OCR software?
Geek OCR software is easy and flexible to set up, it can easily handle multi-page invoices and recognize multi-line items; most traditional and modern OCR tools cannot do this. Nanonets customizes column headers, enabling it to handle complex invoices more efficiently. Geek OCR also ensures high accuracy while processing documents requiring minimal rework or revisions.
The benefits of using Geek OCR go beyond better accuracy, experience and scalability. The following 8 reasons highlight the unique advantages of nanomesh:
Training and working with custom data - Most OCR software is very strict about the type of data it can work with. Nanonets are not subject to such limitations. Geek OCR uses your own data to train the model best suited to your business' specific needs.
Easy to use and flexible - Adapting Geek OCR to your specific business needs is simple and straightforward. From creating custom OCR models and retraining them to adding new fields and handling integrations, Geek OCR can handle it all.
Continuous Learning and Retraining - Businesses are often faced with dynamically changing requirements and demands. To overcome potential obstacles, Geek OCR software allows you to easily retrain the model with new data. This enables your OCR model to adapt to unforeseen changes.
Is there any free OCR software?
In addition to the professional cutting-edge OCR solutions mentioned above, there are also some free OCR software that can do the job to a certain extent. These free solutions run on open source OCR engines and help convert photos, PDFs, TIFFs or scanned documents into editable digital text formats. While they may not be able to handle complex business documents at scale, they are good enough to extract text from simple documents with simple formatting.
These free OCR solutions are available either as web-based applications, standalone software that needs to be installed on various platforms, or as an add-on to full-fledged document editing services. Note that free OCR software often cannot handle handwritten documents, multiple lists, long line items, or low-quality images/scans.