Scan receipts into machine-readable PDFs with OCR.

Store and organize your receipts in seconds. Learn how OCR scanning can turn paper receipts into PDF documents.

You should always store the receipts for your important purchases. You may need them for tax audits, or if you have to prove you have an active warranty on a product. But there’s a big problem with most receipts — they can fade quickly and become completely unreadable.

Luckily, there’s a solution. Read on to learn how an OCR-capable scanner can make storing your receipts a breeze.

OCR helps your computer read receipts.

But first, what is OCR? The acronym stands for optical character recognition. This technology helps turn printed documents and other papers into machine-readable PDF files.

If you’re already scanning your receipts, you may have noticed that you can’t copy text from documents captured with a regular scanner. OCR resolves this issue.

OCR technology identifies the letters on a printed document and recreates them as digital text. This allows you to copy and paste text and search for certain words or phrases. In short, it makes processing your receipts and finding information on them much faster.

Scan your receipts with your mobile phone.

If this all sounds good to you, you might be wondering how you can start using OCR to scan receipts. The first option is to buy a scanner with OCR features. But these devices can be expensive and take up a lot of desk space.

It can be easier — not to mention cheaper — to turn your smartphone into an OCR receipt scanner with a mobile scanner app. All you have to do is point your phone camera at a receipt or any other document and wait a couple of seconds for the app to scan the document.

Then, just upload your newly scanned receipt to your favorite online file storage platform. Once stored you can view, share, or copy text from the receipts whenever you want.