The OCR vendor assessment guide:6 questions to ask.

Your product manager has added optical character recognition (OCR) or PDF transformation and output requirements to the wish list for your next product release. If your timeline and budget are set in stone, it’s time to build a short list of OCR and PDF technology vendors, test features and options, and make final recommendations.

Your specific industry may have different requirements, but ultimately all businesses share common concerns regarding data security and the safe exchange and storage of information. These topics—along with speed and accuracy—should be top-of-mind for your executive team.

2 | The OCR vendor assessment guide: 6 questions to ask. | www.nuance.com

When selecting an OCR or digital document transformation solution, you must

first consider whether the vendor uses a “click” or “page-based” approach.

This can dramatically alter the cost structure for your business. In addition,

consider these potential licensing questions and challenges:

• Is the product hardware or software based?

• Are there dongles?

• Is an external Internet connection required?

• Is there flexibility to expand the license with the business?

• What is the total cost of ownership?

If you don’t ask these questions, you risk selecting a solution that won’t meet your needs—or that will cost more than originally projected.

Due diligence will help you select the right product and vendor—and navigate

challenges over the long-term. When surveying the field, consider these questions:

• How long has the solution provider been in business?

• What is the quality of their engineering and intellectual property?

• What is their reputation for sales and support with their customer base?

• Are they responsive when there’s a question or problem?

• How do top consulting firms rate the vendor?

• What is their commitment to innovation and updating their products?

• Are they simply repackaging someone else’s technology or using an older approach?

• How does their warranty compare?

• Will the company likely be around in one, five or 10 years from now if there is a problem?

Ask the following 6 questions to find the right OCR vendor for your solution:

Question #1: How does licensing work?

Question #2: How good is the organization behind the product?

3 | The OCR vendor assessment guide: 6 questions to ask. | www.nuance.com

OCR accuracy varies greatly among products and vendors. In some cases,

OCR products do not recognize certain page formats or fonts well—or

they may choke on foreign languages and multilingual needs. Others may

have problems with business cards and specialized documents. Or they

may run into difficulties with photos interspersed with text, or colored or

textured backgrounds.

Be sure a vendor’s product claims are accurate. Ask whether the vendor has

supporting proof for data, and whether the tests were conducted for the same

industry or the same types of documents.

A major frustration associated with OCR products is their inability to

differentiate columns, tables and graphics. In some cases, the scanned text

and images become a jumbled mess, and the resulting document becomes

useless. In other cases, formatting gets jumbled, and lists, bullet points and

sections become intermingled.

While no OCR solution is perfect, major quality differences exist among

products and vendors. That’s why you must determine how effectively a

system works in different real-world scenarios. Can the solution detect

columns, tables and graphics, and convert them to a digital document in

a format (DOCX, XLSX, PDF) your organization requires? Can it handle the

nuances of spacing and reproduce fonts effectively? Can it reduce pixel noise

and other potential problems?

In the end, you need to ensure the OCR can reproduce a paper document in a useful digital format.

Question #3: How accurate were the OCR results?

Question #4: Was formatting preserved during the OCR process?

4 | The OCR vendor assessment guide: 6 questions to ask. | www.nuance.com

The ideal OCR solution places a premium on both accuracy and speed. Yet

results can be deceptive if testing isn’t conducted on the same file set. Ask

vendors which equipment they used for testing, and whether the testing

was done on devices that map to your business’ real-world scanning or

OCR models. This may include complex documents or specialized needs,

such as accessing files on smartphones or tablets. Finally, ask whether

product flexibility will allow you to adjust accuracy and speed to achieve

the best possible results.

Even in today’s world of cloud storage and lower storage costs, output file size

can still impact IT systems and the user experience. For example, you may need

to email files or access them on mobile devices, even in areas with slow Internet

connections. That could lead to long load times.

By asking a vendor the file size for different converted and scanned documents, you’ll get the information you need to make an informed choice.

Question #5: How long, on average, did it take to conduct OCR or document conversion on a document?

Question #6: How does the output file size compare to the original file size?

Keep your eye on value.Once you’re ready to present final OCR vendor recommendations to your

executive team, be sure to outline the benefits and build a business case for a

solution. Your end goal is to achieve the best performance at the lowest cost.

The business case may include an explanation of why it’s worth licensing an

OCR engine rather than using a free or open-source product. A paid OCR

solution typically offers numerous key benefits, including: improved OCR

accuracy; faster performance; service and support; APIs that connect to existing

business apps and workflows; and access to a development team dedicated to

improving the product.

5 | The OCR vendor assessment guide: 6 questions to ask. | www.nuance.com

Stay ahead of the competitionIf you’re ready to select an OCR vendor, consider learning more about

Nuance® OmniPage® Capture SDK (Software Development Kit) or

OmniPage Server. OmniPage Capture SDK is designed to provide easy and

deep integration into software applications that run in any environment—

whether it’s a desktop, server or in the cloud.

In addition to outstanding conversion speed and best-in-class PDF

management, OmniPage Capture SDK offers advanced tools, such as form

recognition and document classification technologies, so you can bring your

solution to the next level. Nuance integrates OmniPage OCR technology

into all its imaging solutions, so you can employ that same leading

technology in your own software. In addition, the OmniPage server offers

complete configurability, with design options for Windows, Linux and Mac,

right out of the box, along with mobile device image processing.

The OmniPage Server product suite includes server applications, server

API, folder watcher and web conversion client. All its user interface

components are web-based. It offers a low cost and low effort for the

highest performance, simplifying your developers’ jobs and providing the

security and ongoing improvements that will give your executive team

peace of mind.

6 | The OCR vendor assessment guide: 6 questions to ask. | www.nuance.com

About Nuance Document ImagingNuance Document Imaging provides the software solutions and

expertise required by professionals and organizations to gain

optimal control of their document output and information capture

processes. The comprehensive suite of leading-edge solutions

provides the opportunity to reduce the costs of cumbersome

workflows and eliminate gaps across the lifecycle of their

documents from origin to archiving. Nuance’s cross-platform

compatibility provides seamless deployment across all MFPs,

printers, desktops and mobile devices. With an intuitive user

experience, Nuance delivers more efficient and natural interactions

with the technologies used to create, print, scan and process

documents securely.

Learn more about Nuance® OmniPage® Capture SDK.

Contact us at Imaging@nuance.com

Visit online Request an evaluation

Copyright © 2017 Nuance Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Nuance, and the Nuance logo, are trademarks and/or registered trademarks, of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Americas Corporate Headquarters1 Wayside RoadBurlington, MA 01803781-565-5000

Europe and Middle East International HeadquartersNuance Communications Ireland Limited20 Merrion Road, Ballsbridge,Dublin 4, Ireland+353 1 513 2500

Asia Pacific HeadquartersLevel 11, 124 Walker StreetNorth Sydney NSW 2060Australia

Nuance Communications, Inc.Company strength

• Approximately 14,000 employees

• Regional offices in 35 countries

• FY 2014 non-GAAP revenue was approximately $2.0 billion

Innovative solutions

• Nuance speech solutions support up to 80 different languages

• Nuance holds more than 4,300 patents and patent applications

• A team of more than 2,000 voice and language scientists, developers and engineers

• Nuance maintains one of the world’s largest libraries of speech data

• Nuance has won awards for its solutions in every major product family

Proven use

• Nearly two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies rely on Nuance solutions

• The 8 largest handset and 10 largest auto makers use Nuance solutions

• Nuance solutions have shipped in more than 5 billion mobile phones and approximately 110 million voice-enabled vehicles globally

• There are more than 22 million registered users of Nuance desktop solutions