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OCR

technology
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Also known as: optical character recognition
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optical character recognition
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pattern recognition
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OCR, scanning and comparison technique intended to identify printed text or numerical data. It avoids the need to retype already printed material for data entry. OCR software attempts to identify characters by comparing shapes to those stored in the software library. The software tries to identify words using character proximity and will try to reconstruct the original page layout. High accuracy can be obtained by using sharp, clear scans of high-quality originals, but it decreases as the quality of the original or the scan declines.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Erik Gregersen.