Question:
How does character recognition work? Are the programs that claim to recognize text within image files actually accurate, or is manual retyping a safer bet?
Answer:
Character recognition, also known as Optical Character Recognition or OCR, has actually reached near-perfect accuracy rates in recent years. OCR tools are able to identify text characters using information from the curves and outlines of the different letters. When used as part of a document automation solution, OCR can contain verification tools to ensure accuracy of information. This is especially important for ICR, or Intelligent Character Recognition, which is used for handwriting. OCR and ICR are extremely useful tools to automate processes that normally take a lot of time manually. I would recommend you try an OCR tool like Maestro Recognition Server from CVISION, and see if you find it useful.
Download the free trial version of Maestro here:
