Links2Go Key Resource	OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and Text Recognition: Commercial research and products.

This page provides pointers to commercial available products for machine and hand printed text recognition, pointers to some evaluation tests and to free OCR solutions.

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PAGE CONTENT External links to:

OCR companies and products for typed and machine printed text recognition. ICR companies and products for hand printed / hand written text recognition (HTR). Tests, evaluations, comments. Other lists of OCR resources and open source OCRs.

Links to our pages

living page: Research groups in the world active in Document Image Understanding. living page: Research projects in the world related to OCR and Document Image Understanding OCR and Text Recognition Home Page at itc-irst TeV - Technologies of Vision at fbk. TeV - Technologies of Vision: research on text in images FBK, Fondazione Bruno Kessler (formerly ITC, Istituto Trentino di Cultura) - irst

OCR companies and products for typed and machine printed text recognition

• ABBYY software:
  • FineReader, OCR system (standard, professional), FineReader SDK (for Linux too)
  • Mobile OCR Engine
• Adobe
  • Acrobat Capture, OCR, font, and page recognition. From paper to PDF format. Color, gray level, binary input
• Aramedia provides
  • VERUS, standard and professional, Arabic OCR
• Cognitive Enterprises (now see Nuance).
• Creaceed with:
  • Prizmo OCR for Mac. Scanning and OCR for iOS
• Aktiv Rekord Hungaria OCR, ICR, OMR and bar codes
• CTA TextPert DTK from CTA, Ciencia i Tecnologia Aplicada
• Datacap Inc. Data Capture & Forms Processing Software
  • Taskmaster, OCR, ICR
• Electronic Document Technologies
  • EDT OCR and Card Reader Developer's Toolkit
• ExperVision. Documents reader, complete page recognition
  • TypeReader for end users and for developers (free trial copy)
  • OpenRTK OCR SDK for Mobile and Embedded System
• Idea Technosoft with ixtract Platform (ixFormCL, ixTexter, ixNamer)
• Infty Project, with InftyReader
  • Recognize and translate scientific documents, including math symbols into LaTeX, etc. It incorporates the use of three OCR engines.
  • Free demo.
• IRIS - Office Automation (multiple ICR/OCR engines with voting algorithm):
  • Readiris: OCR software
  • IRISPen: OCR pen input
  • Cardiris: OCR for business card
  • Texiris: OCR for UNIX
• Ligature Ltd., OCR software
  • CharacterEyes
  • SDK
• MediaSeek
  • CamReader modile OCR
• Mentalix, Inc.
  • Pixel!OCRfamily. Multi-engine text, barcode and handprint recognition software for UNIX
• Neoptec (they acquired Mimetics)
  • Data-Scan form processing
  • EasyReader (?)
• NovoDynamics developer of
  • VERUS: Middle Eastern language OCR (Arabic, Farsi, Dari, and Pashto)
  • ArborScript: indexing and retrieval of scanned document databases
• Nuance (formerly ScanSoft, a division of Xerox Corp., which included Caere (which included Calera with WordScan) and Recognita Corporation Hu with Recognita Plus and Recognita Development Toolkit) + Cognitive Enterprises with Cuneiform and Tiger OCR.
  • OmniPage and OmniPage Pro - Optical Character Recognition
  • OmniForm - Electronic Forms Creation, Editing and Filling
  • TextBridge
  • ScanSoft SDK ToolKit for Developers (it was TextBridge API)
• PrimeRecognition
  • PrimeOCR: a voting-based OCR system
• Recogniform Technologies, SpA: OCR, ICR, form identification, form removal. The engine is based on neural networks
  • SDK: DLL, VCL and ActiveX for developers
  • Full applications
• ReadSoft
  • ReadSoft Documents for Forms and for Invoices
• Sakhrsoft
  • Sakhr OCR: Arabic OCR
• TopOCR, OCR Software for Camera or Smartphone (Windows) (2009)
• SimpleOCR (formerly WOCAR)
  • Freeware. Free OCR application and royalty-free OCR toolkit
• Visioneer
  • OneTouch OCR (scanners)
• Vividata, Inc.. OCR for Unix and Linux
  • OCR Shop (based on Caere OmniPage technology)

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ICR companies and products for hand printed / hand written text recognition (now also known as HTR)

• A2iA - Artificial Intelligence and Image Analysis, with CheckReader (CAR and LAR), FieldReader, and AddressReader.
  Cursive, unconstrained and constrained handwriting and machine-printed recognition software
• ABBYY software with FormReader, for handprint form processing
• Aktiv Rekord Hungaria - Forms processing, OCR, ICR, OMR, barcode
• Accusoft Pegasus. with FormSuite
• Captiva Software. (= TextWare + Symbus Technology) with Genesis (was it InScript? - where is it now?) and FormWare: Forms processing and reading. Captiva Family
• CereSoft Inc. with DocAgent, FormAgent and FreeStyle Developers Tool-Kit. Form-processing with freestyle handwriting recognition capability
• Comcom Systems, Inc. with ELA Recognition Engine API. PC based forms processing
• CharacTell Ltd. with SoftWriting, and iREAD Forms (voting along with the proprietary engine "ACR"); recognition of unconstrained handprinted notes
• DocuTec with Docutec Xtract. Now with IRIS
• GDI, Inc. with WindFormOCR, for handwritten and machine printed characters
• Greensoft with EasyView ActiveX for Free Form Data Capture, OCR/ICR (based on Kadmos engine for the character classification task)
• IMPROX Datenverarbeitung GmbH, now named ISIS Knowledge Systems with FormFile, FormReader. Forms processing, OCR, ICR, barcode
• Neoptec (formerly Mimetics) with EasyReader API (?) and Data-Scan, hand-marked form processing. Recognition of handprinted separated digits or uppercase letters, OCR, barcode, checkboxes
• Mitek Systems Inc. with Mobile. QuickStrokes API. ICR, OCR, forms, CAR
• OpenText, formerly Captaris Document Technologies (Captaris acquired Oce' Document Technologies GmbH - formerly CGK: Computer Gesellschaft Konstanz mbH), with the basic engine RecoStar. ICR, OCR and mixed print
• OrboGraph with OrboCAR. Software-only Courtesy Amount Recognition (CAR), Legal Amount Recognition (LAR) engine
• Oyster Software, Inc. with FormsPro for data capture
• ParaGraph International, now in PhatWare with CalliGrapher, on-Line Handwriting Recognition System, and various applications.
  WritePad: ICR for Android and Smartphones
• ParaScript with:
  • FieldScript (form field type recognition)
  • AddressScript (mailing address recognition)
  Off-Line Handwriting Recognition Systems for cursive handwriting, unconstrained hand print or a combination of the two
• re Recognition Technology with KADMOS, OCR/ICR engine, developer kit
• ScanTron (it acquired Pearson NCS), with NestorReader (formerly OMNItools from Nestor Inc.)

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OCR: tests, evaluations, comments

• OCR Techniques in Mail Sorting: A Review of Algorithms, Tech Report, 1984 (it was here: http://www.crc.ricoh.com/~hull/pubs/techrep214_1984.pdf)
• Tests of machine print accuracy - annual reports 1992-1996 at ISRI. With images, ground-truth and performance toolkit
• Tests of OCR accuracy on hand printed characters (NIST)
• NIST OCR Databases (NIST)
• OCR Software Review, by A. Albright and S. Hailes
  (it was at http://kachina.kennesaw.edu/~mking/is425/productevals/ocr)
• Four OCR packages for Windows that deliver speed and accuracy. Byte, October 1994
  (it was at http://www.byte.com/art/9410/sec12/art4.htm)
• Word for Word. Seven OCR programs are tested. PC Magazine. January 20, 1998
  (it was at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/ocr/_open.htm)
• Charakterkunde, J. Heyer. PC Professionell (in German). Mai 1998, p. 174-185
  (it was at http://www.zdnet.de/produkte/artikel/sw/9805/ocr01-wf.htm)
• OCR software eases text input chores. PC World. July 1999
  (it was at http://www.pcworld.com.hk/Comparison/Comp0799.htm)
• Erkennungsdienst, J. Heyer. PC Professionell (in German). Dezember 1999
  (it was at http://zdnet15.zdnet.de/produkte/artikel/sw/199912/ocr01_00-wc.html)
• OmniPage versus TextBridge, Gary Coyne, Applelinks (it was at http://www.applelinks.com/reviews/ocr_tbvomni.shtml)
• An informal OCR comparison, G. Welcher, August, 1997
  (it was at http://www.opc.on.ca/doc_img/details/ocr_dtl.html)
• Products Review: Optical Character Recognition Applications. FineReader Pro 5 and OmniPage Pro X Get the Job Done -- with Your Help, Christopher Breen, Macworld, June 2002
• Products Review: The Next Generation of OCR, K. Monson. PC Magazine, December 2005. Readiris Pro 10 Corp. Ed. - OmniPage Pro 15 - Abbyy FineReader 8.0 Pro. Ed.
• Products Review: The Best OCR Solutions, G. Berline. PC Magazine, August 2008. Abbyy FineReader, OmniPage Pro, TypeReader, Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended
• Products Review: Two OCR packages for Linux compared. Joe Barr, LinuxWorld, 2003
• Linux OCR: A review of free optical character recognition software Austin Acton, blog, May 2007
• Linux OCR Software Comparison blog, June 2010
• OCR products comparison TopTen reviews, 2011

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Other links e.g. OCR resources, open source OCRs

• Go to Character Recognition Bibliography
• Go to Document Analysis Bibliography
• Wikipedia - OCR
• Historical review of OCR research and development Mori, Suen, Yamamoto, Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol 80 No 7 July 1992
• OCR - Optical Character Recognition L. Eikvil, History, Methods and Applications, 1993. (ps.gz)
• OCR page by Tapas Kanungo
• Tesseract OCR developed by HP and University of Nevada in Las Vegas and open-sourced in 2005. Now at Google
• Cuneiform OCR Linux port project. Developed by Cognitive Technologies.
• FuzzyOCR plugin for SpamAssassin to check image attachments
• OCRopus free document analysis and OCR system (2007)
• OCRad - The GNU OCR Free Software
• GOCR (or jOCR) - GNU Public Licensed, OS Independent. Command line.
• LOCR An Optical Character Recognition program for Linux. Command line.
• CLARA OCR CLARA OCR - a free (GPL) OCR for Linux
• easy-ocr free, for linux.
• OCRFeeder document layout analysis and third party free ocr
• TopOCR by TopSoft, Mobile OCR for Digital / Cell Phone Cameras (freeware)
• Free OCR free online OCR. Upload your image for OCR.
• Free OCR another free online OCR. Upload your image for OCR.
• PDF Converter another free online OCR service. Upload your image for OCR.
• a list of totally free OCR

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