OCR

OCR is a technology that reads letters in an image and turns them into text. It is the basis for receipt and document scanning processing.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that converts letters in a photo or scanned image into text data that can be edited and searched by a computer. A representative example is that when a paper receipt is photographed with a camera, the store name and amount are automatically entered into the household account book.

It developed from the demand to turn information trapped in paper documents into data that can be searched and analyzed, and is widely used for ID verification in banks, computerization of documents in companies, and camera translation in translation apps. Recently, thanks to deep learning and multimodal AI, the recognition rate of handwriting and complex forms has also improved significantly.

However, recognition results are not always perfect, so it is common to include a final human verification process in financial or medical documents where a single number cannot be incorrect.

✅ Why it matters

• Increases work efficiency by converting paper documents into searchable data
• Automates repetitive input tasks such as receipt processing and ID verification
• Serves as a data entry point for document-based AI systems such as RAG

⚠️ Limits and debates

• Misrecognition may occur in blurry images, complex tables, and handwriting
• Errors in numbers or names can be fatal, so inspection procedures are required
• Security management is required for the processing of personal information contained in documents