Optical Character Recognition
Technology that converts images of text (typed, handwritten, or printed) into machine-readable digital text. Modern OCR uses deep learning for high accuracy even on difficult inputs.
Why It Matters
OCR is essential for digitizing documents, automating data entry, and making physical documents searchable. It bridges the paper-digital divide.
Example
Scanning a stack of printed invoices and automatically extracting vendor names, amounts, dates, and line items into a structured database.
Think of it like...
Like teaching a computer to read — it looks at shapes on a page and translates them into digital text that can be searched, edited, and analyzed.
Related Terms
Computer Vision
A field of AI that trains computers to interpret and understand visual information from the world — images, videos, and real-time camera feeds. It enables machines to 'see' and make decisions based on what they see.
Document Processing
AI-powered extraction and understanding of information from documents including PDFs, images, forms, and scanned papers. It combines OCR, NLP, and computer vision.