Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process that converts an image of text into a machine-readable text format. For example, if you scan a form or a receipt, your computer saves the scan as an image file. You cannot use a text editor to edit, search, or count the words in the image file.

Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene-photo (for example the text on signs and billboards in a landscape photo) or from subtitle text superimposed on an image (for example: from a television broadcast).