A scanner can scan a picture or a document and save the graphic on a computer as an image, for example, as a TIFF file or a JPG file. Computers generally regard these images, even if they contain text, as static data; that is, computers can display a scanned memo, but they cannot read the text on the memo or search for specific words.
RealLegal Binder's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows the computer to read the document and store its words in a database. As a result, you can search for specific words in a scanned document, and you can annotate phrases in a scanned document.
For example, assume you have a memo that has been scanned and saved as a high-resolution TIFF file. The memo contains words and phrases relevant to a case, such as negligence and omission. Without OCR, the words in the scanned memo would not show up in reports or in the word index. They would simply be a TIFF file that displays as an exhibit. OCR, however, allows RealLegal Binder to read the text and save it in its database; therefore, the words negligence and omission display when you run reports looking for them, and RealLegal Binder lists the words in the word index.