[Full Guide] How to OCR a Paper Form in Seconds with High Accuracy

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a perfect way to turn paper forms into digital and editable forms. It allows you to fill out forms digitally, eliminating the need to fill and scan paper documents.

In this guide, you will learn how to OCR form from your Windows/Mac computer or smartphone. Stick around and master the art of turning paper forms into digital and editable forms with the OCR scan.

Part 1. How to Quickly OCR a Paper Form?

To OCR a paper form, you need a powerful tool that can perform the OCR scan and generate a digital and editable form. That's where UPDF comes into action.

UPDF is an advanced AI PDF editor that provides a powerful OCR feature. Its OCR scan is powered through AI and can recognize text in 38 languages, no matter whether you have a paper form, scanned PDF, or image.

UPDF advanced OCR technology provides up to 99% accuracy. Its intuitive interface requires a few simple clicks to perform the form OCR and get an editable PDF in return. Afterward, you can fill form fields and even use its "Prepare Form" mode to edit/modify/add form fields.

The key features of UPDF include:

• AI-backed OCR of paper form with 99% accuracy.
• Convert the paper form into a digital fillable form after OCR.
• User-friendly interface with no learning curve.
• Recognize 38 languages and support multilingual recognition simultaneously.
• Generate high-quality, smaller-sized files after OCR.
• "Prepare Form" mode to edit/modify/add form fields.
• Support the OCR feature in Windows, macOS, and iOS.

In short, UPDF is your go-to tool to perform form OCR, whether related to employment applications, school admission forms, legal documents, or others.

Impressed with UPDF's exceptional OCR feature? Hit the download button below to install UPDF and give its OCR feature a try right away.

The steps to OCR a paper form using UPDF are different for different devices, as follows:

1. Steps to OCR form on Windows/Mac

Step 1. Install and launch UPDF on your computer. From the home screen, drag and drop the picture of the paper form. The tool will convert the image into PDF format.

Alternatively, click File > Create > PDF from image > select the paper form image.

Step 2. Click the "OCR" option from the right panel.

Step 2. Next, you have to customize the OCR settings, including:

Layout

Choose the desired layout:

• Text and pictures only – Recognize text and images across the document
• Text over the page image – Retain background images while the OCR is performed.
• Text under the page image – Recognized text is placed beneath the images under an invisible layer.

Document Language

Depending on the form language(s), select single or multiple languages.

Image Resolution and Page Range

Set the proper resolution settings for the images. Afterward, select all or customized range of pages you want to scan.

Step 3. Once you have configured all the OCR settings, click "Perform OCR".

UPDF will instantly perform an AI-powered form OCR scan and generate a new PDF document that includes searchable and editable form fields.

Step 4. To let UPDF recognize form fields automatically, click the "Prepare form" icon from the left panel. Afterward, click the "Toolkit" icon and tap "Form Field Recognition". UPDF will instantly recognize the form fields and let you easily fill the form.

2. Steps to OCR form on iPhone

Step 1. Install the UPDF for iOS app from the App Store or click the below download button.

Step 2. Now you have two options. You can open the already taken picture of the paper form or create a fresh picture.

Let's assume you want to scan a paper form, so click "Scan" and follow the on-screen instructions to capture the paper form picture.

Step 3. On the scanning screen, tap the drop-down icon at the top and choose Document mode.

Step 4. Use your device's camera to take pictures of the paper form. You can tap the three dots in the upper-right corner to turn on or off the auto-capture and auto-crop functions. It's recommended to have both features enabled to avoid manual adjustments to the images.

Step 5. Once you've captured the images, tap the arrow icon located in the bottom-right corner.

Step 6. In the next screen, you can manage the images of the scanned form by adding, rotating, cropping, filtering, or deleting them. You can also set the paper size manually or select from available sizes such as A4, A5, A3, Letter, Legal, Ledger, or Tabloid. The Filter option lets you pick a style: Photo, Black & White, Color, or Grayscale.

Step 7. After finalizing the settings, tap the Download icon at the top-right corner to save your document.

Step 8. UPDF will bring you back to the Scanner tab. Tap the three dots next to your file and choose "Convert to PDF." The PDF will then appear in the Files tab.

Step 9. Next, open the converted PDF and long-press on it and tap "OCR". Wait for the OCR to complete.

Step 4. To copy the text from the form, long-press the screen, select the text, and click "Copy".

Note: The UPDF iOS app only allows users to extract or copy text from the form after performing OCR. To edit the paper form, you'll have to open this document with the UPDF desktop app and perform the OCR to make it editable.

This way, the intuitive and powerful UPDF toolkit allows you to effortlessly access paper form OCR data across computers and smartphones.

Besides that, UPDF also supports filling and signing electronic forms. Using the "Prepare Form" option, you can also edit/modify/add form fields.

To learn more about UPDF's PDF form feature, watch this video.

Part 2. Bonus Tips About OCR Form

1. How to share the digital form for filling?

UPDF offers a seamless way to share digital forms for filling. Its share PDF feature allows you to share the form by link or email. Open or create the digital form with UPDF and click the "Share" icon from the right panel.

To share the form as a link, click "Share a Link" and tap "Create". Copy and share the generated link or QR code with others.

Alternatively, you can click "Share with Others", enter the recipient email addresses, and click "Send" to share the form directly through email.

2. How to share the digital form for collecting signatures?

You can use UPDF Sign to share the digital form and collect signatures. UPDF Sign is a web-based tool to send, sign, and track documents. It allows you to send a digital form to up to 50 recipients simultaneously and then track the status of signed documents in real-time. In addition, the recipients simply have to create and sign the document online without installing any software.

Conclusion

Paper forms are becoming the least favorite way to fill forms. OCR forms are emerging as the best way to turn paper forms into digital forms and easily fill/edit/share. From the above discussion, we have found UPDF to be the best PDF tool to perform form OCR with the utmost accuracy, no matter the form language. So, we will wrap up this guide by recommending you install UPDF and utilize its AI-powered OCR to get digital forms effortlessly.