Automation of form processing has been a key factor in improving many business processes and document based business transactions for some time. Automatic extraction of written content for integration into company databases and information workflows is now recognized as key for success in a lot of industries.

While many forms are created digitally and filled out using a keyboard, for instance via server or web applications, many business processes still rely on paper forms that have to be filled out by hand. For the latter the handwritten information is generally either manually keyed in or scanned and processed using OCR/ICR software (Optical Character Recognition/Intelligent Character Recognition), implying numerous time consuming and often costly steps