Method for identifying unrecognizable characters in optical character recognition machines

Claim 1

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: moving the documents along a path in serial flow; reading data from said documents during said movement; interpreting the data read and converting said data into readable characters; establishing a threshold level of certainty below which the character is deemed unrecognizable; identifying readable and unrecognizable characters on the basis of said threshold level; displaying said readable characters in lines as they appear on the document; generating a bit mapped image of each unrecognizable character; inserting said bit mapped image of the unrecognizable character in place of the unrecognizable character on said display within a line of correctly read characters being adjacent thereto; entering the correct character after viewing said bit mapped image in context with said readable characters.

Claim 2

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: moving the documents along a path in serial flow; reading data from said documents during said movement; interpreting the data read and converting said data into readable characters; establishing a threshold level of certainty below which the character is deemed unrecognizable; identifying readable and unrecognizable characters on the basis of said threshold level; displaying said readable characters in lines as they appear on the document; generating a bit mapped image of each unrecognizable character; inserting said bit mapped image of the unrecognizable character in place of the unrecognizable character on said display within a line of correctly read characters being adjacent thereto; entering the correct character after viewing said bit mapped image in context with said readable characters.

Claim 3

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: moving the documents along a path in serial flow; reading data from said documents during said movement; identifying certain fields on said document for processing using optical character recognition techniques; storing in a memory the data read from said fields; determining whether the encoded characters read from said fields are read correctly or deemed unrecognizable with respect to a predetermined criteria and generate signals indicating the position within a line an unrecognizable character; displaying the line of readable characters from the document using a standardized font; extracting from said memory the coordinates on the document of a bit mapped image of the unrecognizable character; inserting said bit mapped image in place of said unrecognizable character in the line of correctly read characters; and entering the correct character after viewing.

Claim 4

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: moving the documents along a path in serial flow; reading data from said documents during said movement; identifying certain fields on said document for processing using optical character recognition techniques; storing in a memory the data read from said fields; determining whether the encoded characters read from said fields are read correctly or deemed unrecognizable with respect to a predetermined criteria and generate signals indicating the position within a line an unrecognizable character; displaying the line of readable characters from the document using a standardized font; extracting from said memory the coordinates on the document of a bit mapped image of the unrecognizable character; inserting said bit mapped image in place of said unrecognizable character in the line of correctly read characters; and entering the correct character after viewing.

Claim 5

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: scanning each document line by line and pixel by pixel; identifying certain fields on said documents for processing using optical character recognition techniques; storing the scanned data from said fields; determining when the encoded characters read from said fields are read correctly or deemed unrecognizable with respect to a predetermined criteria and generate signals indicating the position within a line having unrecognizable characters; extracting from said memory the coordinates on said document of a bit mapped image of each of said unrecognizable characters; displaying the line of correctly read characters when said line has been indicated as containing at least one unrecognizable character; and inserting said bit mapped image in the position of each of said unrecognizable characters in said line of correctly read characters thereby displaying the unrecognizable in context with adjacent correctly read characters.

Claim 6

A method of processing documents having characters encoded thereon in a document reentry system comprising the steps of: scanning each document line by line and pixel by pixel; identifying certain fields on said documents for processing using optical character recognition techniques; storing the scanned data from said fields; determining when the encoded characters read from said fields are read correctly or deemed unrecognizable with respect to a predetermined criteria and generate signals indicating the position within a line having unrecognizable characters; extracting from said memory the coordinates on said document of a bit mapped image of each of said unrecognizable characters; displaying the line of correctly read characters when said line has been indicated as containing at least one unrecognizable character; and inserting said bit mapped image in the position of each of said unrecognizable characters in said line of correctly read characters thereby displaying the unrecognizable in context with adjacent correctly read characters.