As technology grows today, the working dynamics of companies and hence that of data collection, analysis, and interpretation have also transformed from earlier methods. The OCR era has been immensely beneficial in digitizing old documents and texts which have now been transformed into searchable text.
Document automation has become a key aspect for many enterprises. Businesses today want to streamline document processing as it is a process filled errors and mistakes and also does not boost productivity of employees. OCR has helped to improve data extraction processes, over the period of time.
In this blog, we are going to discuss the pros and cons of the best OCR software in 2021. OCR software is essential for companies looking to grow rapidly using digital workflows and automated processes. OCR software automates data capture from scanned documents/images and digitizes the data into a convenient and editable format suitable for your company’s workflow.
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How is OCR helping Businesses?
Many companies around the world are embracing OCR’s breakthrough technology to streamline operations. The use of OCR applies to organizations that depend on documents and forms. You can use this technology to make digital copies of paper documents, view them, and securely store them in the cloud.
Another use of OCR applies to most businesses and organizations around the world, that is, tracking business expenses in real-time. Employees can use their mobile phones to take pictures of paper receipts, invoices, and more. Advanced OCR, such as KlearStack Optical Character Recognition (OCR), scans receipts in a few seconds and converts handwritten notes to digital format.
This eliminates the need to store paper receipts and submit them to the approval and accounting teams. It also reduces data redundancy and overpayments by automating the approval process. The paperless process simplifies expenses and saves about 2-3 hours per bill compared to manual expense management.
A list of best OCR software in 2021
KlearStack –
KlearStack is an intelligent document processing solution that works with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), AI-based language processing, and Automated intelligence to extract the relevant information from the unstructured documents. OCR works on the scanned files with the aid of spotting the textual content inside the images, hand-written, and printed or digitally generated files, and changing them into machine-encoded structured text schema. Pattern and characteristic extraction strategies assist OCR in extracting the records from those files.
Pros:
- Supports template-free data capture from multiple document types
- Offers both SaaS on-premise options
- High accuracy with template-less data capture
- Offers adaptive deep learning models
- Intelligent extraction of significant fields
- Offers a fully functional free trial version
Cons:
- The free trial is offered for a limited period,
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC –
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is a data entry application software that facilitates you to extract textual content and convert scanned files into editable PDF documents. It provies a whole PDF app for any device. In this method, you could create and edit PDFs and convert PDF documents to Microsoft Office formats and JPG. You also can sign PDFs, and print or compress without delay from Pro DC.
Pros:
- Ability to skip factors immediately from various devices.
- Can edit PDF files immediately and the quantity of equipment available.
Cons:
- The Free Version lacks a few features.
- The lengthy feature set may be overwhelming
IBM Datacap –
Datacap streamlines the capture, popularity, and type of commercial enterprise files to extract critical statistics from them. Datacap has a sturdy OCR engine, more than one feature in addition to customizable rules. It works throughout more than one channel, consisting of scanners, cell devices, multifunction peripherals, and fax. IBM Datacap is a data entry management software.
Pros:
- Has a sturdy set of equipment for reinforcing images
Cons:
- Very little online support
- UI can be greater intuitive
- Setup may be cumbersome
- Slow
Kofax Omnipage –
Omnipage is an effective PDF OCR software program that can deal with automation of OCR tasks. This solution specializes in extraction and line object matching.
Pros:
- Configures complex applications in records capture scanning mechanism
- Ease of use
Cons:
- UI now no longer intuitive
- Configuration for AP Automation isn’t straightforward
- API integration may be improved
Kappa –
Kappa gives automatic report management, processing, type, and statistics extraction answers to digitize paper files in your organization.
Pros:
- Fast setup
- Great support
- Great API for developers
Cons:
- Limited template customizations
- Limited white-label customizations
- Bulk modifications now no longer supported
- The VAT is frequently now no longer displayed correctly
- The app crashes frequently
- Can’t educate the OCR model
- The choice system is needs improvement
AWS Textract –
AWS Textract routinely extracts textual content and different information from scanned files with OCR. It is a data entry management software. It is likewise used to identify, understand, and extract information from paperwork and tables. For greater statistics take a look at this targeted breakdown of AWS Textract.
Pros:
- Pay-per-use billing model
Cons:
- Can’t be trained
- Varying accuracy
- Challenging for handwritten files
Docparser –
Docparser is a cloud based and a report processing OCR solution that could automate data entry workflows for businesses.
Pros:
- Easy setup
Cons:
- Requires a few rounds of training to setup the parsing rules
- Not sufficient templates
- Zonal OCR approach – cannot take care of unknown templates
ABBYY Flexicapture –
FlexiCapture is a stable, scalable record imaging and information extraction software program that mechanically transforms files of any structure, language, or content material into usable and available business-geared-up information.
Pros:
- Recognizes photographs very properly
- Easy to capture difficult replica
- Great integration with various RPA platforms
Cons:
- Initial setup may be hard and complex
- Automatic processing of invoices now no longer set up
- No readymade templates
- Difficult to customize
- Low accuracy with low decision photographs/files
Nanonets –
Nanonets is an AI- based OCR software program that automates information capturing for record processing of invoices, receipts, ID playing cards, and more.
Nanonets makes use of OCR, and Deep Learning to extract applicable data from unstructured information. It is fast, accurate, smooth to use, permits customers to construct custom OCR fashions from scratch, and has a few neat Zapier integrations. Digitize files, extract information fields, and combine them with your ordinary apps through APIs in a simple, intuitive interface.
Pros:
- Modern UI
- Ease of use
Cons:
- May face challenges with excessive document volume spikes
- Does not support multipage continuous invoices. Each page is interpreted separately.
- Page classification is very weak when processing multipage mixed files containing pages of multiple document types
