Best OCR Software Comparison (Pros & Cons)

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that converts an image into text. It can be used for many different purposes, such as document conversion, creating searchable PDFs, or turning scanned documents into editable text.

OCR has become a vital part of work-life for people in the business world. It is used in various ways, like converting physical paper documents to digital formats or creating indexed files of scanned documents by page number and keyword search terms.

Accessibility for people with disabilities is another reason businesses turn to OCR technology. Consider the challenge of reading through unformatted documents, such as PDFs, for someone who cannot see well or read. OCR software can convert these documents into audio files or text-based formats like HTML or Word, greatly enhancing accessibility. The text format is universally accepted, simplifying information sharing over the internet or email. This means individuals who cannot see well or read can still access their documents.

If you want to digitize any paper-based documents, it is essential to choose the right OCR software that can extract text from images or convert a PDF file into an editable format.

Contents

• AWS Textract
  • Pros of AWS Textract
  • Cons of AWS Textract
• Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
  • Pros of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
  • Cons of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
• Nanonets
  • Pros of Nanonets
  • Cons of Nanonets
• SimpleOCR
  • Pros of SimpleOCR
  • Cons of SimpleOCR
• IronOCR
  • Pros of IronOCR
  • Cons of IronOCR
  • Code Examples
• Conclusion

AWS Textract

AWS Textract is a service that converts various types of documents into an editable format using deep learning. Let's imagine you have hard copies of invoices from different companies and store all their information on spreadsheets on your device. This work is usually done manually, which is inefficient and can lead to mistakes. Textract can take invoices as input and turn them into a structured output. Once you upload your invoices to Textract, it decodes the document for you.

Pros of AWS Textract

• Pay-per-use billing method, which is helpful for budget-conscious purchases.
• Easy to use without needing any other integrated models.
• Offers a free trial for testing.

Cons of AWS Textract

• Accuracy varies with different resolutions and formats.
• It should ideally support training with user data but currently does not.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is OCR software that helps you extract text and convert scanned documents into editable PDF files. In addition to its OCR tools, you can share, sign, print, or compress PDFs directly from the app. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC can also convert images to text, matching your text with the appropriate fonts on your computer. It offers a range of other functions like commenting and editing, and allows you to reorder pages, combine files, and modify images.

Pros of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

• Multi-platform application usable on desktop, web, and mobile.
• Supports multiple languages.
• Offers batch processing.

Cons of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

• Expensive for general users.
• Requires specialized hardware to run.

Nanonets

Nanonets is AI-based OCR software that converts scanned documents into editable and searchable PDFs using artificial intelligence and machine learning. It can convert PDF documents to Word file format and supports multiple languages. Nanonets uses deep learning to validate extracted data, improving as more data is processed.

Pros of Nanonets

• Allows input data scanning from any web-enabled device.
• Supports multiple languages and file formats.

Cons of Nanonets

• Expensive.
• Performance issues with blurred images and documents.

SimpleOCR: Free OCR Software

SimpleOCR is a straightforward library that lets you convert scanned text images into editable text documents. Best known as a free OCR option, it supports over 100 languages and has a despeckle feature to boost accuracy.

Pros of SimpleOCR

• Supports batch processing.
• Simple navigation with an easy UI.
• Free to use.

Cons of SimpleOCR

• Result accuracy can be lacking.
• Processing speed is slow.

IronOCR: .NET OCR Library

IronOCR is a .NET library designed for OCR tasks, enabling developers to easily process text data. It efficiently converts images and PDF documents into text, offers automatic character recognition, and supports 127 languages. Compatible with platforms like Windows, Mac, and Linux, it is free for personal development use.

Pros

• Easy installation process.
• No need for external add-ons.
• Provides extensive features and customizations.
• Well-documented with tutorials available on the Iron Software website.
• Supports 127 languages.

Cons

Not free for commercial use.

Code Examples

Let's examine some IronOCR code examples:

using IronOcr;
// Instantiate the IronTesseract class
var Ocr = new IronTesseract();

using (var Input = new OcrInput(@"images\image.png"))
{
    // Deskew the image to correct any tilt
    Input.Deskew();
    // DeNoise the image if accuracy is below 97% (commented here by default)
    // Input.DeNoise();
    // Read the text from the image
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    // Output the extracted text
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

using IronOcr;
// Instantiate the IronTesseract class
var Ocr = new IronTesseract();

using (var Input = new OcrInput(@"images\image.png"))
{
    // Deskew the image to correct any tilt
    Input.Deskew();
    // DeNoise the image if accuracy is below 97% (commented here by default)
    // Input.DeNoise();
    // Read the text from the image
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    // Output the extracted text
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

Imports IronOcr
' Instantiate the IronTesseract class
Private Ocr = New IronTesseract()

Using Input = New OcrInput("images\image.png")
	' Deskew the image to correct any tilt
	Input.Deskew()
	' DeNoise the image if accuracy is below 97% (commented here by default)
	' Input.DeNoise();
	' Read the text from the image
	Dim Result = Ocr.Read(Input)
	' Output the extracted text
	Console.WriteLine(Result.Text)
End Using

The above code extracts text from a low-quality image file.

using IronOcr;
// Instantiate the IronTesseract class
var Ocr = new IronTesseract();

using (var Input = new OcrInput())
{
    // OCR entire document
    // Add a PDF using file path and optional password
    Input.AddPdf("example.pdf", "password");

    // Alternatively, OCR specific pages of a PDF
    Input.AddPdfPages("example.pdf", new[] { 1, 2, 3 }, "password");

    // Read and extract text from the input document
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    // Output the extracted text from the PDF
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

using IronOcr;
// Instantiate the IronTesseract class
var Ocr = new IronTesseract();

using (var Input = new OcrInput())
{
    // OCR entire document
    // Add a PDF using file path and optional password
    Input.AddPdf("example.pdf", "password");

    // Alternatively, OCR specific pages of a PDF
    Input.AddPdfPages("example.pdf", new[] { 1, 2, 3 }, "password");

    // Read and extract text from the input document
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    // Output the extracted text from the PDF
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

Imports IronOcr
' Instantiate the IronTesseract class
Private Ocr = New IronTesseract()

Using Input = New OcrInput()
	' OCR entire document
	' Add a PDF using file path and optional password
	Input.AddPdf("example.pdf", "password")

	' Alternatively, OCR specific pages of a PDF
	Input.AddPdfPages("example.pdf", { 1, 2, 3 }, "password")

	' Read and extract text from the input document
	Dim Result = Ocr.Read(Input)
	' Output the extracted text from the PDF
	Console.WriteLine(Result.Text)
End Using

The above code extracts data from an entire PDF document or from selected pages of a PDF document.

Conclusion

After comparing all the OCR software options, we conclude that IronOCR is superior to the other options mentioned in this article. Highly customizable with various functions, IronOCR is both effective and affordable for developers and companies. More details about IronOCR's pricing can be found via this link.