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Timeline of optical character recognition
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<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <table><tbody><tr><th>Time period</th><th>Summary</th></tr><tr><td>1870–1931</td><td>Earliest ideas of optical character recognition (OCR) are conceived. <a href="/facts/Edmund_Edward_Fournier_d%27Albe/4KpsCg7c">Fournier d'Albe's</a> <a href="/facts/Optophone/fjlE1WF2">Optophone</a> and Tauschek's Reading Machine are developed as devices to help the blind read.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1931–1954</td><td>First OCR tools are invented and applied in industry, able to interpret <a href="/facts/Morse_code/GXwCl1HV">Morse code</a> and read text out loud. The <a href="/facts/Intelligent_Machines_Research_Corporation/E7pF525e">Intelligent Machines Research Corporation</a> is the first company created to sell such tools.</td></tr><tr><td>1954–1974</td><td>The <a href="/facts/Optacon/Cl83Bs2L">Optacon</a>, the first portable OCR device, is developed. Similar devices are used to digitise <a href="/facts/Reader%27s_Digest/nDCmcpRK">Reader's Digest</a> coupons and postal addresses. Special typefaces are designed to facilitate scanning.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1974–2000</td><td>Scanners are used massively to read price tags and passports.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> Companies such as Caere Corporation, <a href="/facts/ABBYY/tNcuCuQR">ABBYY</a> and Kurzweil Computer Products Inc, are created. The latter one develops the first omni-font OCR software, capable of reading any text document.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2000–2016</td><td>OCR software is made available online for free, through products like <a href="/facts/Adobe_Acrobat/M2JSVARa">Adobe Acrobat</a>, WebOCR, and <a href="/facts/Google_Drive/mgEjwvIs">Google Drive</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a></td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="timeline">Timeline</h2> <table><tbody><tr><th>Year</th><th>Event type</th><th>Technology</th><th>Details</th></tr><tr><td>1870</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>American inventor Charles R. Carey invents the retina scanner, an image transmission system using a mosaic of photocells, considered the first OCR invention in the world.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1885</td><td>Invention</td><td>Image scanner</td><td><a href="/facts/Paul_Gottlieb_Nipkow/f9h5nQW5">Paul Nipkow</a> invents the <a href="/facts/Nipkow_disk/45JbKkl1">Nipkow disk</a>, an image scanning device that later will be a major breakthrough both for modern television and reading machines.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1900</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>Russian scientist Tyurin envisions the first OCR machine to serve as an aid to the visually handicapped, but never manages to develop it.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1912</td><td>Product</td><td>Text-to-speech</td><td><a href="/facts/Edmund_Edward_Fournier_d%27Albe/4KpsCg7c">Edmund Fournier d'Albe</a> develops the <a href="/facts/Optophone/fjlE1WF2">Optophone</a>, a handheld scanner that when moved across a printed page, produces tones that corresponded to specific letters or characters, so as to be interpreted by a blind person.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1916</td><td>Patent</td><td></td><td>American engineer John B. Flowers patents the "One-Eyed Machine Stenographer", a machine capable of reading and typing a script. It worked by superimposing all the letters to find a point that marked each of them.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1921</td><td>Invention</td><td>Text-to-tactile sensations</td><td>Italian professor Ciro Codelupi envisions the "Reading machine for the blind", capable of transforming luminous sensations into tactile sensations.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1929</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>Austrian engineer <a href="/facts/Gustav_Tauschek/MtldUBDK">Gustav Tauschek</a> creates the first OCR device called the "Reading Machine", with a photo-sensor pointing light on words when they corresponded to a content template in its memory.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16"><sup>16</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1931</td><td>Patent</td><td>Text-to-telegraph</td><td>Israeli physicist and inventor <a href="/facts/Emanuel_Goldberg/R9DndkTf">Emanuel Goldberg</a> is granted a patent for his "Statistical machine" (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US1838389">US Patent 1838389</a>), which was later acquired by <a href="/facts/IBM/QszA7nwd">IBM</a>. It was described as capable of reading characters and converting them into standard telegraph code.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17"><sup>17</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1938</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>MIT professor <a href="/facts/Vannevar_Bush/F12rLyGQ">Vannevar Bush</a> develops the Microfilm Rapid Selector, a similar but simpler Goldberg' statistical machine, and 40 times faster.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18"><sup>18</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1949</td><td>Application</td><td></td><td>Engineers working on the <a href="/facts/Radio_Corporation_of_America/NWyjNN6R">Radio Corporation of America</a> start a project to help the blind and the <a href="/facts/United_States_Department_of_Veterans_Affairs/oIxJ2vDE">U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs</a>, using the first text-to-speech techniques.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19"><sup>19</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1951</td><td>Invention</td><td>Text & Morse-to-speech</td><td>American cryptoanalyst <a href="/facts/David_H._Shepard/E7pF525e">David H. Shepard</a> and Harvey Cook Jr. build "Gismo", a machine able to read aloud letter by letter and interpret Morse code (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US2663758">U.S. Patent 2,663,758</a>).</td></tr><tr><td>1952</td><td>Company</td><td></td><td>The <a href="/facts/Intelligent_Machines_Research_Corporation/E7pF525e">Intelligent Machines Research Corporation</a> is founded by D. Shepard and William Lawless Jr, to commercialise Gismo (later renamed to "Analysing Reader").<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20"><sup>20</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1954</td><td>Application</td><td></td><td>American magazine <i><a href="/facts/Reader%27s_Digest/nDCmcpRK">Reader's Digest</a></i> becomes the first business to install an OCR reader, used to convert typewritten sales reports into <a href="/facts/Punched_card/44WsPulQ">punched cards</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21"><sup>21</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1962</td><td>Invention</td><td>Portability</td><td>Stanford professor <a href="/facts/John_G._Linvill/yjvqTqjT">John Linvill</a> develops the <a href="/facts/Optacon/Cl83Bs2L">Optacon</a>, the first portable reading device for the blind.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:22" href="#fn:22"><sup>22</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1965</td><td>Application</td><td></td><td><i>Reader's Digest</i> expands its OCR use to digitise serial numbers of coupons. with a <a href="/facts/RCA_501/JhR8dEEz">RCA 501</a> computer.</td></tr><tr><td>1965</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>American inventor <a href="/facts/Jacob_Rabinow/3YUxlWGp">Jacob Rabinow</a> develops an OCR machine to sort mail from the US Post Office.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:23" href="#fn:23"><sup>23</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1966</td><td>Invention</td><td>Handwriting scanner</td><td>The <a href="/facts/IBM_Rochester/2NnJqE0w">IBM Rochester lab</a> develops the <a href="/facts/IBM_1287/bTSw2131">IBM 1287</a>, the first scanner capable of reading any handwritten numbers.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:24" href="#fn:24"><sup>24</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1966</td><td>Patent</td><td></td><td>Linvill is granted the patent for the Optacon, described as "Reading aid for the blind" (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US3229387">U.S. patent 3229387</a>).</td></tr><tr><td>1968</td><td>Invention</td><td>Typefaces</td><td><a href="/facts/American_Type_Founders/N3xjUU3C">American Type Founders</a> and Swiss designer <a href="/facts/Adrian_Frutiger/T9349q8q">Adrian Frutiger</a> introduced <a href="/facts/OCR-A/4Y5SAM2u">OCR-A</a> and <a href="/facts/OCR-B/xeM9PS0P">OCR-B</a>; typefaces made to facilitate OCR operations.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:25" href="#fn:25"><sup>25</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:26" href="#fn:26"><sup>26</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1969</td><td></td><td></td><td>The US Army implemented what may have been one of the first major applications using OCR technology by converting their manual allotment program to a centralized system using IBM 360 computers. The process involved the purchase of IBM Selectric typewriters using Time Roman font 12 for all of its finance offices around the world. This application allowed all military personnel to allot portions of their paycheck through automated payroll deductions to pay bills, send to savings, etc. which eliminated monthly processing. The success of this program paved the way for all military services to follow and eventually led to the conversion to a fully automated pay system years later.</td></tr><tr><td>1971</td><td>Application</td><td>Postal scanner</td><td>Canadian postal operator <a href="/facts/Canada_Post/uymMHkyt">Canada Post</a> starts using OCR systems, to read the name and address on the envelopes and to print barcodes, using <a href="/facts/Invisible_ink/mIrVFUjJ">ultraviolet ink</a> (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US5420403">U.S. Patent 5420403</a>).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:27" href="#fn:27"><sup>27</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1974</td><td>Company</td><td>Omni-font</td><td>American inventor <a href="/facts/Ray_Kurzweil/1DYRFcVe">Ray Kurzweil</a> creates Kurzweil Computer Products Inc., which develops the first omni-font OCR software, able to recognize text printed in virtually any font.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:28" href="#fn:28"><sup>28</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1976</td><td>Company</td><td></td><td>Dallas company Recognition Equipment Inc. is founded to read credit card receipts from gasoline purchases (<a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US4027142">U.S. Patent 4027141</a>).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:29" href="#fn:29"><sup>29</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1977</td><td>Company</td><td>Commercialisation</td><td><a href="/facts/Robert_Noyce/J77WDDld">Robert Noyce</a> founds the Caere Corporation (now <a href="/facts/Nuance_Communications/eDzbo1wK">Nuance Communications</a>), and introduces the first commercial handheld OCR reader.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:30" href="#fn:30"><sup>30</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1978</td><td>Product</td><td></td><td>Kurzweil Computer Products begins selling a commercial version of the OCR computer program, called the "Kurzweil Reading Machine".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:31" href="#fn:31"><sup>31</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1980</td><td>Selling</td><td></td><td>Kurzweil's company is sold to <a href="/facts/Xerox/qyxVVqaa">Xerox</a>, who renamed it as <a href="/facts/Scansoft/eDzbo1wK">Scansoft</a> (now merged with Nuance Communications).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:32" href="#fn:32"><sup>32</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1984</td><td>Product</td><td>Passport scanner</td><td>Caere Corporation develops the first passport scanner for the <a href="/facts/US_State_Department/WsB5FMBT">U.S. State Department</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:33" href="#fn:33"><sup>33</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1987</td><td>Application</td><td>Price tag scanner</td><td>American retailers <a href="/facts/Sears/cFEFwARE">Sears</a>, <a href="/facts/Kmart_(United_States)/QrRk7oRk">Kmart</a> and <a href="/facts/JCPenney/LJMD88uh">J.C. Penney</a> start using OCR to scan price tags.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:34" href="#fn:34"><sup>34</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1989</td><td>Company</td><td></td><td>OCR Russian company <a href="/facts/ABBYY/tNcuCuQR">ABBYY</a> is founded by David Yang, and starts selling products intended to simplify converting paper files to digital data.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:35" href="#fn:35"><sup>35</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>1992</td><td>Invention</td><td></td><td>The first program that recognizes <a href="/facts/Cyrillic_script/0btN3oWC">Cyrillic</a> is invented by Russian company <a href="http://ocrus.ru/">OKRUS</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:36" href="#fn:36"><sup>36</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2000</td><td>Application</td><td>Online service</td><td>OCR technology is made available online as a service (WebOCR), in a <a href="/facts/Cloud_computing/guhg0FGV">cloud computing</a> environment, as well as in mobile applications like real-time translation of foreign-language signs on a smartphone.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:37" href="#fn:37"><sup>37</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2005</td><td>Application</td><td>Software</td><td>The <a href="/facts/Free_software/IaoVtJXn">free</a> cross-platform OCR engine <a href="/facts/Tesseract_(software)/dGJ01LJy">Tesseract</a> is published by <a href="/facts/Hewlett_Packard/abuNSYNu">Hewlett Packard</a> and the <a href="/facts/University_of_Nevada,_Las_Vegas/bLVCuQWw">University of Nevada, Las Vegas</a>.</td></tr><tr><td>2008</td><td>Application</td><td></td><td><a href="/facts/Adobe_Acrobat/M2JSVARa">Adobe Acrobat</a> starts including support for OCR on any <a href="/facts/PDF_file/C9Mn1vYL">PDF file</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:38" href="#fn:38"><sup>38</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2011</td><td>Application</td><td>Word-frequency lookup</td><td><a href="/facts/Google_Ngram_Viewer/y3lUrRDP">Google Ngram Viewer</a> is developed to chart frequencies of words on any source printed from 1950 to 2008.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:39" href="#fn:39"><sup>39</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:40" href="#fn:40"><sup>40</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2013</td><td>Application</td><td></td><td>The <a href="/facts/MNIST_database/nzUEydbL">MNIST database</a> is created to train machine learning models in pattern recognition.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:41" href="#fn:41"><sup>41</sup></a></td></tr><tr><td>2015</td><td>Application</td><td>Open access</td><td>Google offers OCR tools to scan any <a href="/facts/Google_Drive/mgEjwvIs">Google Drive</a> files in over 200 languages for free.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:42" href="#fn:42"><sup>42</sup></a></td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Optical_character_recognition/kdTyxa1l">Optical character recognition</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Handwriting_recognition/RgdyWtDQ">Handwriting recognition</a></li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Schantz, H. F. (1982) The history of OCR: optical character recognition, Recognition Technologies Users Association. <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Schantz, H. F. (1982) The history of OCR: optical character recognition, Recognition Technologies Users Association. <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Frutiger, Adrian. Type. Sign. Symbol. ABC Verlag, Zurich, 1980. p. 50 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>"Optical character recognition - History". ABBYY Technology. Retrieved 18 September 2016. <a href="http://www.abbyy.co.il/?categoryId=63424" target="_blank">http://www.abbyy.co.il/?categoryId=63424</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>J. Scott Hauger, Reading Machines for the Blind ( PDF ), Blacksburg, Virginia, Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, April 1995, pp. I-II, 11-13. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131228035948/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-02272007-092410/unrestricted/LD5655.V856_1995.H384.pdf" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20131228035948/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-02272007-092410/unrestricted/LD5655.V856_1995.H384.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>"Kurzweil Computer Products". www.kurzweiltech.com. Retrieved 2016-09-18. <a href="http://www.kurzweiltech.com/kcp.html" target="_blank">http://www.kurzweiltech.com/kcp.html</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>"Paper to Digital in 200+ languages". 6 May 2015. Retrieved 2016-09-18. <a href="https://research.googleblog.com/2015/05/paper-to-digital-in-200-languages.html" target="_blank">https://research.googleblog.com/2015/05/paper-to-digital-in-200-languages.html</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>"Press Room". Adobe Systems. 14 July 2009. Retrieved 4 December 2010. <a href="https://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200805/060208AdobeAcrobat9.html" target="_blank">https://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200805/060208AdobeAcrobat9.html</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>Schantz, H. F. (1982) The history of OCR: optical character recognition, Recognition Technologies Users Association. <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>"The History of OCR". Data processing magazine. 12: 46. 1970. <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:11"><p>Schantz, H. F. (1982) The history of OCR: optical character recognition, Recognition Technologies Users Association. <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:12"><p>EE Fournier, The Type-Reading Optophone, Our Surplus, Our Ships, and Europe's Need, and more ( PDF ), inScientific American, vol. 123, nº 19, New York, Scientific American Publishing Co., November 6, 1920, pp. 463-465. <a href="http://statisfactions.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/opto1920.pdf" target="_blank">http://statisfactions.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/opto1920.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:13"><p>d'Albe, E. E. Fournier (1914-07-01). "On a Type-Reading Optophone". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 90 (619): 373–375. Bibcode:1914RSPSA..90..373D. doi:10.1098/rspa.1914.0061. ISSN 1364-5021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspa.1914.0061" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspa.1914.0061</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:14"><p>La macchina che legge e che scrive (PDF), in La scienza per tutti, Year XXIII, nº 11, Milano, Casa Editrice Sozogno, 1º June 1916, p. 166. (italian) <a href="http://www.introni.it/pdf/La%20Scienza%20per%20Tutti%201916_11.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.introni.it/pdf/La%20Scienza%20per%20Tutti%201916_11.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:15"><p>Macchina per leggere pei ciechi (PDF), in La scienza per tutti, Year XXVIII, nº 2, Milano, Casa Editrice Sozogno, 15 January 1921, p. 20 (italian) <a href="http://www.introni.it/pdf/La%20Scienza%20per%20Tutti%201921_02.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.introni.it/pdf/La%20Scienza%20per%20Tutti%201921_02.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:16"><p>"History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, The bases of digital computers, OCR". history-computer.com. Retrieved 2016-09-09. <a href="http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/OCR.html" target="_blank">http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/OCR.html</a> <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:17"><p>Schantz, H. F. (1982) The history of OCR: optical character recognition, Recognition Technologies Users Association. <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:18"><p>Buckland, Michael Keeble (2006-01-01). Emanuel Goldberg and His Knowledge Machine: Information, Invention, and Political Forces. Greenwood Publishing Group. 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