>>”Maybe I am just missing something here, but why even use OCR?”
>
>Any office that takes in multiple letters and docs a day, scans them in with some form of OCR so they’re searchable.
And yet this document was not “taken in” but “put out.”
Furthermore, there is no reason to make it searchable because all the [printed] text is that of a standard form (and OCR doesn’t do that well against handwriting, especially when it’s “untrained” on the writer).
I have approached this situation from the Devils Advocate position. Trying to duplicate the docs characteristics. Making plausible assumptions. All ridiculously charitable when considering other facts, granted.
That said, I would not be surprised if the White House had OCR programs similar to what the Post Office uses, or the Federal Reserve, which process millions of handwritten docs and checks.
Somebody scanned it at some point. I don't know whether that was in Hawaii or in Washington--I suspect the latter.
there is no reason to make it searchable because all the [printed] text is that of a standard form
Like I said above, the OCR option is turned on by default. Nobody had to decide to make it searchable, that's just the way their system was already set up.