Optical character recognition is a technology used to convert printed material into an electronic copy based on actual character recognition, creating a near-identical electronic version that supports edits and search functionality, as opposed to images created from scanned representations. OCR is frequently used to archive large volumes of printed data. If you reproduce material scanned using OCR technology, the final product is an OCR reprint.
History
- The first record of a U.S. patent on OCR technology dates back to the early 1930s, issued to Paul W. Handel. OCR reached the commercial market with Readers Digest in the 1950s. The U.S. Postal Service uses OCR technology to produce shipping labels and populate shipping database information based on pre-written addresses on packages and envelopes.
Reprinting
- OCR scans are editable and searchable, as with traditional text files. You can easily locate and correct any interpretation errors before creating reprints. Depending on the volume of reprints you are creating, you can produce prints from your own desktop printer, or work with a commercial printing service. Because OCR scans are in a format that can be manipulated, you have more alternatives for handling the data and creating prints.
OCR Software
- OCR software is available for a range of operating systems and computers. Once a costly technology available only to developers and large corporations, there are applications for the home user, small business and hobbyist. Scan quality can vary with a multitude of factors, but high-quality, clear documents can become 99 percent accurate scans with the most successful applications. Documents with dark backgrounds, cursive script and other variations of standard text may produce a less accurate final result.
Considerations
- Creating reprints from materials scanned with OCR technology may be a violation of copyright laws if you do not own the license to the original material. Check the ownership and licensing rights of any material that is not your own original property before you create reprints from an OCR scan.
