There are a lot of discussions these days about the importance of handwriting. Some people believe that it is a dying art, while others maintain that it is still an important form of communication. But what are the real benefits of handwriting? And how does it compare to printed text?
What is different about printed text and handwriting?
The printed text doesn’t necessarily translate to literacy effectively. That’s because there is a visual map for spoken words but not for reading text – meaning that without the audible function of voice each printed word must be read, decoded, and comprehended.
Hence, handwritten text is the actual way a reader understands and correctly views something. That’s why handwriting is irresistible for many people.
There are many arguments in favor of handwriting. First and foremost, handwriting is a very personal form of communication. It is unique to each individual and can be used to express emotions and feelings that cannot be conveyed through printed text. In addition, handwriting is a very tactile experience, which can stimulate the brain in a way that printed text cannot.
Handwriting also has some practical advantages over the printed text. For example, it is easier to write in small spaces than to fit large amounts of text onto a page. On the other hand, printing the text make it more useful as we can perform many operations such as modify/search/ update, etc.
The bottom line, I do prefer handwriting over printing text, as I am expressing myself while writing. However, my main problem with handwriting is that when I scanned such documents they will be saved as images or PDFs (uneditable). Therefore, I start looking for automated data extraction, i.e., the possibility of extracting handwriting and converting it onto digital and editable versions. It is OCR!!.
What is OCR(optical character recognition)?
It stands for optical character recognition that can extract content from printed, typed, and handwritten and physical files text. By doing so, we can get an edible and digital document. Then, Will reading more info about OCR, I meet another friend, it is AlgoDocs.
What is AlgoDocs? How to use it?
Mainly optical character recognition, or OCR, became a piece of cake using AlgoDocs which is a web-based data extraction platform that allows us to extract and manage text and tables from all types of documents such as bank statements, invoices, HR forms & payrolls, receipts, sales & purchase orders, price lists, etc. and then saves the data into editable files such as Excel/JSON/XML or many other integrations as accounting software. The main features of AlgoDocs are:
1) Extract Tables(AlgoDocs can easily extract all tables, even the ones allocated on multiple pages.).
2) Processing Low-Quality Scanned Documents(Thanks to the advanced AI-powered OCR engine developed by the AlgoDocs team, that can handle low-quality images with as low dpi as 75( see Figures 1 and 2 for example).
Figure1. Low-quality scanned image uploaded to AlgoDocs.
Figure2. The extracted table from the image shown in Figure1 using AlgoDocs.
3) Extract Handwritten Text/Tables( Similarly the used Intelligent Character Recognition functions allow to convert handwritten text into machine-printed text). A handwritten example is shown in Figure3, and the result of uploading the sample to AlgoDocs is presented in Figure 4.
Figure 3. Sample of a scanned handwritten text.
Figure4. The extracted table, using AlgoDocs, from the scanned image shown in Figure3.
4) Convert PDF Documents to Structured JSON Objects( AlgoDocs can extract the text and tables from images and PDFs and save it into JSON files).
You may also check the free easy-to-follow articles and Video Tutorials to learn how easily we can use the friendly interfaces and all functionalities of AlgoDocs.
Once you decide to use the platform, you can try AlgoDocs free subscription plan, it is forever free with 50 pages per month. You may check AlgoDocs pricing for paid subscriptions based on your document processing requirements.
