PDF data extraction software can work differently depending on whether the PDF is scanned or computer generated. Scanned PDF files need to be converted to text with OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Native PDF files already have text that is 100% accurate so using OCR only introduces inefficiency and expense. SimpleOCR offers solutions that can quickly scan and extract data from native PDF files or use OCR if the PDF is a scanned document.
How to use Zone OCR when the data can be in different locations?
Modern Forms Processing software can use rules-based templates for locating data on documents based on label keywords, data types, regular expression pattern matching and other methods.
The most common example in business is an Invoice. Businesses receive invoices from 1000s of different vendors, each with important information like the Invoice Number, Due Date and Total needed to process the document, but each vendor invoice is formatted a little differently than the others.
Software like ABBYY FlexiCapture will look for keywords like “Invoice Number” or variations like “Inv #” and “Invoice No.” to locate the invoice number value on each invoice.
These applications are also able to capture complex table data and output to formats like Excel or a SQL Database, especially when it doesn’t line up into regular columns.
In recent years, artificial intelligence based training has made it possible to simply point and click on the location of data on documents as you process them and generate these templates automatically, dramatically reducing the need for ongoing expert help these systems require.