How to Digitize and Import Business Cards to Database Programs (Contacts, Mail, etc) on Mac?

As a businessman, have you ever counted how many business card you have received? Hundreds or thousands? Do you use business card binders to hold them or just let them be anywhere at your convenience? Are you mad at yourself when you lost track of some important business partners that you should associate with? Here, we will show you the importance of business cards and how to organize and import to database programs on Mac.

Why Business Cards Matter?

1. It is the first impression of your brand, even yourself;
   When you first meet someone on a commercial event, neither of you know each other, an official business card just make the meeting more sincere, it presents your brand and even yourself before any conversion to start for a further understanding.
2. It save your time especially on a short business meeting;
   If the time is too tight for a business conversion, business card can save greatly your time. Give a brief but impressive introduction about yourself, the person you met will connect you with the business card and tag you with her/his own words.
3. It makes you professional and prepared;
4. It allows you to build connections with any prospective business partner promptly;
5. It updates you the status of current situation in your field.

How to Instantly Organize Business Cards on Mac?

Now that we have so many reasons to use business cards, how to instantly organize business cards for our business purposes? 

Part 1. In the Beginning

At the very beginning, we need to read the business card carefully and decide the value of each business card, pick out those you need the most for prioritized processing, take out those won’t add any potential value to your business. By doing so, you can be more focused on things taking you to somewhere.

Part 2. Use OCR to Recognize Business Card and Import Data to Contact Database Programs

The next step now is to digitize all valuable business card information and put them in good organization using an OCR tool. Of course, there are also many business card scanners available which requires the co-work of hardware and software. However, the cost of a business card scanner solution just jumps higher than that of an OCR solution.

What does OCR mean?

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) refers to mechanical or electronic conversion of images, of typed,handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. Put it in nutshell, it means recognizing text from non-editable resources to editable formats on different devices.

How to Choose an OCR Tool?

No worries, we have picked out the best OCR tool for you basing on performance and accuracy. Cisdem OCRWizard, the professional OCR tool to change all non-searchable, non-editable PDFs(including native and scanned pdf) and images into more than 10 editable formats. With its easy-to-use interface and high accuracy, users are able to convert scanned files to Word, to Text, to Excel, to ePub, to other formats very easily.

Anyway, if you want to, you can check these OCR tools before following our recommendation:

1. Adobe OCR
2. Online Free OCR Tool
3. Professional Desktop OCR Tool

Steps to Digitize Business Card and Import Information to Database Programs on Mac

1. Download free trial of Cisdem OCRWizard, install and launch on your Mac.

Free Download

2. Import business cards into Cisdem OCRWizard.

Before importing the files, you need to scan the business card into PDF files or image files, or just take pictures of them using your Mac camera.Once the business card files are ready in your mac, import it to OCRWizard by drag&drop, or click "+" to add the files.

3. Recognize information from business card.

Go to Recognize>Business Card, the text will be recognized as following, a contact template will be automatically created on the right panel,   check the information in these fields and correct or add information if necessary. Even, you can delete the data if you want to.

4. Import business card information to database programs.

Click the share icon at the bottom of contact template, import the contact into Contacts, Mail, Airdrop.

Done! Then you can see the contacts are ready in these programs, all the information intact and accurate.

Part 3. Alternatives to Digitize and Import Business Cards to Database Programs

Also, you can use a business card scanner to do this. A business scanner is basically composed of hardware(the scanner to digitize the business card) and software(the program to manage the information), which makes the cost a little higher than OCR solution. It is quite portable and convenient to organize your business cards.

Make Full Use of Each Business Card for Your Business Goal

After digitizing your business cards and organize them in your contact programs, you should learn how to make full use of these business cards.

1. Categorize the contacts for easy organization and better memorizing;
2. Check company information to find out the potential competitors or partners;
3. Check social media accounts to get a further understanding;
4. Keep Contact at any chance once you are well prepared for;
5. Hang in there, you may be rejected for times but that's how business starts and grows.