Creating Electronic Databases from TIFFs and Paper

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Here's a common scenario: a request is made to a partner organization or government agency for list of names and addresses. The delivered list is a stack of printed names and addresses. Now what do you do?

Over the years, ILS has created electronic databases from shareholder lists, county court records, state licensed professionals lists, archived call center information, and eFaxes. Our arsenal of custom programs and templates allows us to process a variety of formats accurately and in a timely manner.

Any clean paper copy can be scanned to create an electronic counterpart. The most successful conversions are from plain text files, such as letters or printed emails, and tabulated data. We have variable success scanning photographs, graphs, and graphics. We have little to no success scanning paper with handwritten marks or notes, papers with dark highlighted sections, or bent or partially mutilated papers.

Most OCR jobs are completed within three to five business days. Minimum conversion size is 100 pages.

The Process

Please mail your original or copies of your papers to our office. They will be mailed back once the job is complete. We perform the following steps:

1. Choose an OCR setting for the best possible resolution

2. Manually review the OCR results to look for formatting & font problems

3. Identify problems which require manual attention

4. Write a custom cleanup program to deal with formatting issues (if necessary

5. Perform any additional data append or address standardization services if requested

Cost

Jobs containing less than 5,000 pieces of paper will be the minimum file fee. Jobs with over 5,000 pieces of paper will be charged per page or per record, whichever is appropriate. Pricing depends on the following items:

• Size & type of paper: letter, legal, pin fed

• Cleanliness of the paper

• Format of the page

• Number of charts or pictures embedded within the text

• Font type

• Duplicate entries that need to be removed

• Additional services such as phone append, reverse append, or address standardization

Output databases can be formatted in Microsoft Excel, tab delimited, or comma separated value. Documents will be formatted as a Microsoft Word or Adobe file.
 

Contact us at (240) 243-4457 ext 121 for all questions regarding file formats, welcome letters, demographic selects, and prices. All lists are sent via email or through our secure site. ILS accepts Visa, MasterCard, and Discover.

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