OCR analyzes document images and produces machine-readable text. Accuracy depends heavily on source quality, and it degrades substantially with poor scans, unusual fonts, handwriting, and complex layouts such as medical forms.
Handwriting recognition is a distinct and less reliable capability.
Alternative Names:
OCR, Text Recognition
Why it Matters?
OCR quality sets a ceiling on everything downstream, because a document whose text was not captured is invisible to keyword search, technology-assisted review, and AI retrieval alike. In medical records litigation this is a real limitation, since handwritten nursing notes and faxed records frequently OCR poorly. Reviewing OCR confidence and spot-checking problem categories is worth doing before relying on search results as complete.
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Frequently asked questions
Why does OCR quality matter for discovery?
How reliable is OCR on medical records?
