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Tech glossary

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of converting handwritten or printed text into digital data. Once converted, the text can be searched or analyzed. A variety of formats can be converted by an OCR process, including handwritten documentation, photos and PDF files.

OCR is a primary capability of computer vision, the process in which computers understand images or videos. Both hardware and software can do OCR. Algorithms leverage OCR to identify different languages, hard-to-read text and trends. Although OCR deciphers text to be read digitally, the algorithm or machine doesn’t understand the text.

Learn more about OCR

Related terms

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer vision
  • Digital Innovation
  • Image processing
  • Machine vision

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