Question
: What scanning settings will give the best OCR (Optical Character Recognition) accuracy?
Answer : When scanning an image that you would like to OCR (convert to text), the best scanner settings are Black and White (not Grayscale or Color) and 300dpi resolution. Most commercial OCR applications work well with color images, but black & white will usually give better accuracy. Scanning at more than 300dpi will only improve accuracy for very small print and may even decrease accuracy in some cases. For most documents, 300dpi is optimal.
If you have hard to scan originals or need the best OCR accuracy, you can try an Image Enhancement Software like Kofax VRS (Virtual ReScan) to improve the quality of the image.
You can find our OCR page here and a general introductory guide to OCR software here.
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