Edit

Share via

Set up and manage optical character recognition in Microsoft Syntex

  • Article

The optical character recognition (OCR) service for Microsoft Syntex is set up in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Prerequisites

Licensing

Before you can use the OCR service, you must first link an Azure subscription in Syntex pay-as-you-go. OCR is billed based on the type and number of transactions.

Permissions

You must be a SharePoint Administrator or Global Administrator to be able to access the Microsoft 365 admin center and set up the OCR service.

Important

Microsoft recommends that you use roles with the fewest permissions. This helps improve security for your organization. Global Administrator is a highly privileged role that should be limited to emergency scenarios when you can't use an existing role.

Set up optical character recognition

After an Azure subscription is linked to Microsoft Syntex, OCR will be automatically set up and enabled for all SharePoint sites for Microsoft Syntex.

Set up data loss prevention policies using OCR

The compliance admin for your organization can also configure the OCR settings for your tenant for data loss prevention policies in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

The compliance admin can specify which SharePoint sites to include for data loss prevention. If there are different sites specified for Syntex and data loss prevention, the maximum number of sites will be enabled for OCR. You won't be charged twice for processing.

For more information, see Learn about optical character recognition in Microsoft Purview.

Manage sites enabled for Syntex

By default, the OCR service is turned on for libraries in all SharePoint sites. To limit which sites users can use OCR, follow these steps.

  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Settings > Org settings.

  2. On the Org settings page, select Pay-as-you-go services.

  3. On the Pay-as-you-go services page, select the Settings tab.

  4. Under Document & image services, select Optical character recognition.

  5. On the Optical character recognition panel, under Select the SharePoint libraries where you would like to enable optical character recognition, select Edit.

  6. On the Enable optical character recognition in Microsoft 365 panel, change the setting from All sites to Selected sites (up to 100) or No sites. For selected sites, follow the instructions to select the sites or upload a CSV listing of the sites. You can then manage site access permissions for the sites you selected.

  7. Select Save.