Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically taking out data from marked fields, such as oval shades and fill-in fields, on printed forms. OMR technology scans a printed form and reads predefined positions and records where marks are made on the form. This technology is useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed quickly and with greater accuracy, such as questionnaires, and academic exams. A common OMR application is the use of “oval sheets” for multiple-choice tests used by schools and colleges.

The student indicates the answer on the test by filling in the corresponding oval, and the form is fed through an optical mark reader, a device that scans the document and reads the data from the marked fields. 

1. OCR:

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an input device that is used to scan the printed/ handwritten text materials into computer-readable text making it easy to edit and store. It is used to read the cheque numbers in the banks arid millions of magazines and letters are sorted every day by OCR machines.

2. MICR:

Magnetic Ink Character Reader enables special characters printed in magnetic ink to be read and input rapidly to a computer. MICR is used extensively in banking because magnetic- ink characters are difficult to forge and are therefore ideal for marking and identifying cheques.