Optical character recognition (OCR) is a technology used to overcome the drawbacks of a simple scanner. When any printed document is scanned with the help of OCR, the resultant electronic file will not be in image form but in a form of editable text (ASCII codes). The resultant text can be edited by normal word processors.
Optical character recognition definition
Optical character recognition is the conversion of images of printed or handwritten text into machine-encoded text using an optical scanner and a specialized software.
All OCR systems include a combination of hardware and software. An optical scanner is used for scanning image, and then a sophisticated software is used for analyzing images and extracting the text in the image in an editable format.
OCR is a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and computer vision.