Top 11 Advanced OCR Tools for Digital Marketing

• By Jackson Miller
• 22-07-2024
• Digital Marketing

Digital marketers use OCR to extract text from images for business campaigns, represent pictures in text form, and more. Businesses can improve their digital marketing strategies by using optical character recognition (OCR) tools. This helps them make more money and run their businesses more efficiently.

OCR software has become more advanced as technology has improved. It can now read documents that do not have a fixed format, recognize handwriting, and process low-resolution documents quickly. This is why businesses are moving away from paper and using OCR software to make more money, lower costs, and give customers a better experience. In this article, we will discuss the 11 best OCR tools for digital marketers.

Why are OCR tools important for digital marketers?

OCR technology is used for a variety of purposes in digital marketing. It helps with social media engagement by extracting text from user-generated content (UGC) and converting it from JPG to Word format. OCR tools also make content marketing easier by turning brochures, flyers, and market research reports' text into digital files that can be used again or analyzed. This keeps information correct and saves time.

OCR tools also automates lead capture by scanning handwritten information on business cards or website forms, which cuts down on mistakes made when entering the information. In this way, data from offline surveys or questionnaires can be quickly analyzed. OCR also improves content accessibility by turning image-based text into formats that screen readers can read.

How to Choose the Best Tool?

It is an important step to select a suitable tool for your business. Here are some key auspects you should consider while choosing an OCR tool for you:

Think About Your Requirements

A variety of optical character recognition (OCR) software solutions can scan both printed and handwritten text and characters. Based on your company's needs, choose the best document scanning and conversion solution.

Check Efficiency and Accuracy

If you need text recognition software, make sure it is highly accurate. This is necessary for documents with complex layouts or a variety of typefaces and sizes. The tool must be accurate and extract text from images in seconds.

Multiple Files Compatibility

Generally, optical character recognition software is compatible with a wide variety of document types, including PDFs, images (JPEG WebP or PNG), and both printed and handwritten texts. But some are format-specific; for example, an optical character recognition (OCR) scanner can only read OMR sheets or documents printed in an identical format. Choose an optical character recognition (OCR) tool wisely based on your company's requirements.

Security and Confidentiality

Give top priority to software that follows privacy rules and has a lot of security features to keep sensitive data safe. Before you choose between cloud-based solutions and on-premises installations, you should carefully think about your security needs.

Cost for the Tool

When choosing an OCR program, you should think about things like the total cost of ownership, the licensing model, and how the program can be expanded. Find out if a one-time purchase or a subscription-based model will work for your budget. Also, make sure the software can grow with your business and think about other costs like setup, training, and maintenance.

Top OCR Tools for Digital Marketing

Below is a list of the top OCR tools for digital marketing.

1. Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is an OCR software that helps you convert image to text. It can also convert scanned documents into PDF files that can be edited. It provides a complete PDF solution for any device. You can create and edit the PDFs and convert PDF files to Microsoft Office formats and JPG. You can also share PDFs directly from Pro DC. Adobe Acrobat recognizes your text, matches your font, and converts the PDF into that font. The OCR offers multiple features like text recognition, adding comments, page reordering, and combining files. You can rotate, delete, or crop the pages. Pro DC helps you share files in a protected format for comments and comparison. It also allows you to remove passwords from protected PDFs and collect feedback from multiple people in one file.

Features

• Your files were converted immediately.
• The program recognizes the text’s font and converts the PDF to that font.

Pros

• Powerful editing features.
• Compatible with other Adobe Suite products.
• Dedicated mobile apps.

Cons

• Premium features are available.
• recurring subscriptions.

2. JPG to Text

The JPG to text converter tool converts image to text. When you upload the picture to this tool, it will begin to analyze the picture’s words and turn them into readable text. It is one of the greatest online converter tools, and it is free to use. The JPG Converter makes all of your management tasks simple and easy. The process of doing business becomes faster because digital data access is faster for companies. This tool can reduce mistakes, deletions, and manual functions of businesses during data management. It also offers other services, like convert JPG to Word. using this, the users can directly output their text into word document. It saves the original format of the data in the image.

Features

• This tool can extract the text even from low-resolution images.
• No installation is required to use this tool.

Pros

• It saves time and effort.
• Improves accessibility.
• Allow editing and searching

Cons

• Limited functionality.
• Not 100% accurate.

3. Nanonets

Nanonets is a company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for document processing, object detection, and optical character recognition (OCR). This technology automates data extraction from various types of documents, such as invoices, receipts, forms, and IDs, by using machine learning algorithms.

This can be particularly useful for businesses that want to organize their document management processes. This tool is also useful for those who want to reduce their manual data entry efforts. By using AI, you can extract data from documents and images, and your employees will have more time to focus on higher-value tasks instead of spending hours entering data by hand.

Features

• This tool provides extraction in real time.
• This tool is simple to use, and the cost is very low.

Pros

• Competition and transparency—fast ROI and value for money.
• Extracts meaningful information from unstructured data.
• Friendly interface for training and deploying custom models without coding.

Cons

• Accuracy Limitations.
• Limited language support.

4. Abbyy

Abbyy FineReader is an OCR software that is used to convert scanned documents, PDF files, and images into editable and searchable formats. It supports over 200 languages. This tool recognizes the text and converts the document accurately. It converts the document into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. This tool saves a lot of time for digital marketers because it works by saving the details from the scan into a readable document.

In addition to this, Abbyy contains a large number of character recognition technologies, such as texts printed by machine. Abbyy also offers barcode recognition and hand-printed texts in a maximum of OCR languages. It further allows you to correct paragraphs and sentences and even fix the layout of the documents.

Features

• This tool offers every recognition technique needed for data extraction, handwritten text, and machine text.
• Through this tool, users can store large amounts of documents very efficiently.

Pros

• Versatile Output Formats.
• It supports multiple languages.
• Flexible on Windows, Mac, and mobile.

Cons

• Quality scanning slows for large document batches.
• As compared to competitors, the software is expensive for casual users.

5. Rossum

Rossum is a clever “plug-and-play” tool that helps businesses extract data from both structured and unstructured documents. Rossum extracts data by using artificial intelligence (AI). This tool uses many advanced algorithms to extract data from various types of documents, such as invoices and contracts, accurately.

Rossum does not directly play a role in digital marketing, but indirectly, it contributes to a digital marketing strategy by speeding up back-office processes.

Features

• One of the features of Rossum is that it is web-based. The benefit of this is a faster return on investment.
• No more keystrokes by hand.

Pros

• Using AI to extract data.
• Excellent client service.
• Easily accessible.

Cons

• For small businesses, Rossum may be too expensive.
• Some features need manual input.

6. CamScanner

Using optical character recognition software, CamScanner allows businesses to store, sort, edit, and share images and documents. This program offers small changes and auto-enhancing highlights to increase the importance of the records. Clients can use this to enhance the filtered reports' content and image quality, which greatly improves OCR.

You can use CamScanner to make high-quality digital copies of brochures, flyers, and educational pamphlets. Once these papers are scanned, they can be used as content for digital marketing efforts like newsletters, social media posts, or website pages.

Features

• This tool supports multiple languages.
• CamScanner can extract text from images by using sharp character pattern recognition.

Pros

• Multiple formats.
• Easy to use.
• A free version is available.

Cons

• OCR is useful, but complex documents and handwriting may produce inaccurate results.
• Some users find the free version's ads interrupting.

7. Readiris

Readiris looks great and has a lot of useful features and functions. This program is one of the most complete ones if you need to scan a lot of paper.

Readiris turns pictures, paper documents, and PDF files into text that can be searched and changed. Readiris lets you change files and keep track of them all in one place with just a few clicks. It can edit, sign, and merge papers, and it can convert between different file formats very quickly. Its intelligent OCR data capture technology also lets users get text out of photos that are embedded in them.
It works with a lot of file formats, including Microsoft Office formats. You can have text read out loud by using this tool. You can also sign and protect your finished digital papers with security. You can add watermarks, notes, and annotations.

Features

• Readiris allows the translation of scanned documents into multiple languages.
• Readiris improves digital marketing SEO by converting scanned documents into searchable text.

Pros

• Fast reading and parsing.
• Clean UI.
• High precision.

Cons

• Limited plain-text choices.
• No save to clipboard option.

8. Kofax OmniPage Ultimate

If you are looking for OCR reading for your business, you must consider Omnipage Ultimate. It is an advanced OCR software that is designed to convert scanned documents, pdf files, and images into editable and readable text. Even though the price is comparatively high, most small companies can still afford it because it has a lot of features that are helpful in digital marketing.

This tool has gained the trust of many businesses, such as Amazon, Ford, etc., because it gives accurate conversions. This tool allows you to create personalized workflows that send your documents automatically to the right place in the right format, depending on your needs.

Features

• In this tool, users can batch process documents
• This tool supports multiple languages.

Pros

• Friendly interface.
• Engine-trainable.
• Ability to automate.

Cons

• Easily frozen and laggy owing to slow processing.
• Low-resolution inputs reduce accuracy.

9. Tesseract OCR

Tesseract OCR converts text pictures into editable digital representations. It supports several platforms and languages. A flexible learning system increases efficiency through training. It integrates easily with other applications, so it is a versatile tool for developers to automate document digitization and the process of data extraction. One great thing about Tesseract is that it works well with a lot of different programming languages and frameworks by using wrappers like Pytesseract, which is also known as Python-Tesseract.

Features

• Tesseract can extract text from images like infographics, and printed marketing material.
• It supports multiple languages.

Pros

• Excellent handwritten alphabet recognition.
• Uses data extraction techniques based on deep learning.
• OCR software is both free and open-source.

Cons

• Numerical errors may occur.
• This command-line OCR has no GUI (graphical user interface).

10. Docparser

Docparser is a powerful document data extraction tool. It automatically turns PDFs, scanned documents, and images into structured data. This tool identifies and extracts data by using OCR technology and pattern recognition. The extracted data can be downloaded very easily. It is easy to use and reduces manual data entry.

Docparser has a Zonal OCR technology that helps to find data in image-based papers and pull it out. Docparser can get data from tables, allow you to make your own parsing rules, use smart filters, and do a lot of work before a picture is saved. It has barcode and QR code scanning technology that users can use to read documents. Users can also send parsed documents directly from the platform to a number of cloud apps.

People can make their own processing rules that fit their needs and the types of documents they work with. The data that is extracted can be downloaded in several different forms or easily added to other apps. Docparser is simple to set up, reducing the amount of manual data entry required. It also speeds up and improves the accuracy of data processing.

Features

• Docparser can analyze event and contest registrations for marketers.
• Docparser extracts data from online and PDF lead capture forms.

Pros

• It's best to get the data in an easy-to-process format.
• Pre-made templates for multiple categories.
• Platform-independent, cloud-based.

Cons

• Non-auto-rechargeable.
• Very complex parsing rules can slow parsing.

11. Amazon Textract

Amazon Textract can extract data from a variety of documents. It accurately finds text, tables, and forms in images and PDF files, which makes it easy to extract data for many uses. It provides an easy way to automate the document. It reduces manual data entry and increases productivity.

Amazon's fully managed machine learning service automatically pulls useful data from various sources. Selective Context Attentional Scene Text Recognizer (SCATTER) is a unique feature of Amazon Textract that uses computer vision to pick out text from scanned images with many different backgrounds.

Features

• This tool is affordable.
• It is highly scalable.

Pros

• Completely perfect for automating processes.
• Versatile billing structure.
• Combines artificial intelligence with OCR.

Cons

• An exclusively cloud-based service.
• Limited language.

Conclusion

With the help of optical character recognition (OCR), we can change digital texts based on images into machine-readable texts. Digital marketers can use OCR tools more effectively when they automate data. OCR software helps to reduce mistakes made by people entering data and gets rid of the need for hand coding. OCR makes the process of entering data automatic. Even if the paper is hard for a computer to read, a high-end OCR tool can still get important information from it. Keeping, sharing, and changing data is very easy with these software programmes. Taking into consideration all of these statements, it is evident that optical character recognition (OCR) tools have a wide range of applications in digital marketing.