OCR Solutions for a Paperless Future: Going Green and Efficient with AI

It is common knowledge that paper is made by cutting down trees. This is because wood is required for paper production. This means that as the production and use of paper increases, the quality of our environment degrades. OCR could be a potential solution for a paperless world and environmental salvation.

Similarly, managing this much paper is also a hassle. Many businesses face productivity loss because of documentation issues. To solve all these issues and make documentation paperless, there is technology available. It is known as Optical Character Recognition. 

But why make such efforts to go paperless? If the above disadvantages of paper documentation weren’t enough of an answer for you, then let us give you some more reasons. 

The Need for a Paperless Solution

The Environmental cons of using paper-based documents are huge. And almost everyone knows about it. Other than reducing the count of trees worldwide, paper production also plays a part in deteriorating the environment. 

In the USA, the paper industry is responsible for 20% release of toxic waste into the air. This shows the highly negative impact of this industry. 

Other than that, managing hard copies of documents is extremely ineffective. It has been found that an average of 4 weeks are lost each year because of mislabeled, untracked, or lost documents.

These are all proven statistics. I hope they help you understand why a paperless future is essential. 

Understanding OCR Technology

Now, to answer how this paperless future can be achieved. The optical character recognition technology mentioned before is the key to this. With this, you can convert images of paper documents into digital documents. 

OCR tools and software undergo the following processing steps to perform their function:

• First, the inserted image is converted into a scanned image. 
• This scanned image is then analyzed. This analysis finds all the text characters from the image.
• The detected text characters are then extracted. The final results are in the form of editable text characters. 

Now, we will explain the benefits of this process.

How can OCR Help in Going Green and Becoming Efficient 

OCR is a cutting-edge technology for making workspaces function without paper. In other words, it helps us save the environment and makes our work more effective at the same time. 

In the following, we have discussed some ways in which this is possible. 

1. Digitization of Paper Files

Remember all the demerits of paper files that we discussed above? All those issues can be solved if the paper documents are converted into digital files. This is possible with the help of OCR tools.

To convert your documents from paper form into a computerized form, follow these steps:

• Capture scanned or simple images of your documents.
• Insert these images into an OCR tool that can extract text from images.
• Save the text results in the form of Word files or any other documented form.

In this way, your heaps of paper documents can be saved into a single hard drive or cloud storage. Also, this process is not only for document digitization. Other paper files, like student notes, can also be computerized with OCR tools.

2. Cost-Efficient Documentation

 Another advantage of using an OCR tool for digitizing documents is that it saves money. Let’s suppose a situation to understand how this happens.

Let’s say that you have 100 document files to manage. The cost of paper used, the ink used, the machines used, and the storage of those 100 documents will be considerable. On the other hand, you can create digital documents with just a laptop. 

This difference in expenses needed to create both types of documents shows how useful OCR is. The digital files created by this technology can be managed without hassle. 

3. Improved Data Processing

As said before, OCR can also be used for productivity escalation. With this technology, procedures like data entry become much easier to execute. But how?

In the standard data entry process, the data entry clerk is required to input information from physical files in software manually. Contrastingly, with OCR, this information gets converted into a form that can be copied.  

Once that happens, it can simply be copied and pasted into the desired software. In this way, a task, normally requiring several hours, can be fulfilled in minutes.

4. Quick Access and Modification of Documents

In one of the sections above, we explained how OCR can help us go green by converting paper files into computerized documents. But that is not all. Going paperless is not only beneficial for the environment.

Actually, this also improves the accessibility and manageability of documents. To understand this, let us have a comparison.

According to an online survey, 46% of employees report that finding documents is time-consuming. In other words, they spend considerable parts of their working day finding important files.

A digitized document overcomes this challenge. If you have your office data in a digital format, you can simply search for documents just by typing their name. Today’s fast machines have instant searching capabilities and help you get to your desired files in seconds. 

Final Words

To end this, we will emphasize the importance of OCR a little more. As you may have concluded from the discussion above, there are no drawbacks to using OCR. You can digitize paper files and enjoy immense benefits in turn. Your productivity will be increased, and you will save money. Also, you will help the environment. 

That’s why we suggest that you choose a suitable OCR tool for you right now and help the World in becoming green and more efficient.