When you scan a document that has text or numeric data on it, you are able to read and understand what is written in the scanned image. However, to a computer, the resulting image file is just as meaningless an assortment of pixels as a landscape photo. In order to transform this information into an editable format that you can search through, copy, and modify without retyping it manually, you will need the an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
There is a wide variety of OCR software available. While they all share the ability to convert images of machine printed (not handwritten) text or numbers into an editable format, the various software often have different features, accuracy, prices, and language options.
Chinese OCR, which is the ability to convert Chinese characters to editable formats, is becoming more mainstream. Chinese OCR was first introduced by ABBYY FineReader. All versions of FineReader include support for Chinese characters. The latest versions of ReadIRIS and Nuance OmniPage also include support for Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese character recognition in their base packages.
Both ABBBY and IRIS also offer Chinese OCR options in their enterprise server OCR solutions, FineReader Server and IRISDocument Server.
FineReader Professional 14 includes Chinese, Japanese, and Thai languages in their base package. No special version or add-on is required.
FineReader Corporate includes Chinese, Japanese, and Thai character recognition in their base package. No special version or add-on is required.
Add-on license is available for ABBYY FineReader Server to add Chinese, Japanese & Korean (CJK) language support. Thai character recognition language pack is also available, but is sold separately from CJK.
ReadIRIS 17 Pro now includes Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Korean character recognition in their base package. No special version or add-on is required.
ReadIRIS Corporate version is the same as Pro but with the ability to recognize files over 50 pages, business cards and monitor a hot folder to automatically process images in the background.
ReadIRIS 17 Pro for Mac now includes Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Korean character recognition in their base package. No special version or add-on is required.
ReadIRIS Corporate version for Mac is the same as Pro but with the ability to recognize files over 50 pages, business cards and monitor a hot folder to automatically process images in the background.
Add-on that enables Chinese, Japanese and Korean character recognition in the IRISDocument server OCR solution.
