OCR, or optical character recognition, is an important part of any comprehensive document management solution. However, there's no single way to handle OCR; instead, you can personalize your strategy to your heart's content. So how do you get the most out of this tool? Let's find out!

Document Management: The Value of OCR

Document management does a lot of things for your business, but one of its most important roles is to be a bridge between physical documents and digital workspaces. It can achieve that goal in a variety of ways, from security improvements to workflow automation, but OCR is probably the biggest (and most impressive) part of the deal.

Simply put, OCR is a kind of translation system. When you scan or otherwise capture a document, OCR tools "read" the content, compare shapes against a comprehensive database, and translate the whole thing into something your computer can understand. That means you'll be able to search and edit the document.

Sure, there are ways to capture content without OCR--but that means you end up with a static file, basically just an image. For this reason, most companies prefer to have OCR at their disposal.

Building OCR Into Your Document Management Approach

To make sure you're getting the most from OCR, you need to build it right into your document management strategy. Here are a few ways to make that happen:

Think about your documents themselves.

What kinds of documents are you capturing? Do they have special characters or handwritten information? Do they lack a standardized structure? Who owns and maintains them? These questions will help determine your OCR approach and how it fits into your overall document management system.

Be smart about storage.

It's easy to get distracted by all those OCR possibilities--but don't forget to have a plan for after document capture is complete. While OCR makes it easy to search your files, you'll still want organization rules and conventions to make storage easier.

Consider accuracy.

Some OCR solutions are more accurate than others. However, that might not be a big deal for some of your documents. If you can quickly and easily change the occasional error, you may consider compromising on a simpler system; if, on the other hand, accuracy is paramount, go for the best and most comprehensive solutions.

In conclusion, OCR is a great tool--especially if you know how to leverage it effectively.

Do you want to get more from OCR? Contact us today to see how to work this solution into your document management system.