Optical input devices such as scanners and digital cameras mostly create raster graphics. These graphics may contain text, but that text cannot be processed directly by a computer. Editing or searching text inside graphic formats like .png or .jpg is not possible.
In the course of business you'll often encounter documents that contain text, but are in a format that computer-based word processing does not support. These sorts of files are mostly images from optical input devices, such as scanners, digital cameras and fax receivers, which are produced in the form of raster graphics. Such texts must first be recognized by OCR before these documents can be efficiently utilized. Once that is done, you can edit, copy and search these texts as you normally do. Automatic character recognition saves valuable time and money.
OCR as time goes by: The first machine-readable font was developed for the American government 45 years ago. Much has changed in the world of OCR technology from that time until today.
1968 was a revolutionary year - not just in the sense of political upheaval, but in the history of the computer as well. Douglas C. Engelbart invented the computer mouse, the precursor of the personal computer hit the market, and electronic data processing was slowly gaining in popularity and demand.