What is ICR?
ICR, or intelligent character recognition, takes character recognition technology to a level beyond that of optical character recognition OCR software, which is limited to the recognition of printed text. ICR recognizes handwritten text, despite the great deal of variation in the handwriting of different individuals. ICR is unique in its ability to adapt to different styles of handwriting in order to achieve high levels of accuracy in text recognition.
How to get the most out of an ICR engine
In order to get the best ICR results, make sure that the ICR engine that you are using can achieve high levels of accuracy for different styles of handwriting. While ICR accuracy does not yet match the near-perfect accuracy of OCR software, it is reasonable to expect accuracy rates of 97 percent or higher. The best way to make sure that your ICR engine is operating at its best is to have clear documents in which different parts of the text are carefully separated to avoid any confusion. Additionally, a high-quality scanner will prevent blemishes on the page that might interfere with recognition. Together, these factors make it easier for ICR software to perform its work properly.
Tools that use ICR technology
ICR technology is mainly used by automated forms processing tools, which are designed to extract information from scanned forms and cannot do so without the technology needed to recognize the text. Forms frequently contain spaces for handwritten responses, and ICR is needed in order for these responses to become machine-readable. Forms processing tools can be used to process invoices, EOBs, education records, surveys, and a wide array of other forms. While OCR may be sufficient for forms containing only printed text, ICR is needed for the many documents that have handwritten content as well.
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