Bill of Lading OCR

Lido is the most effective OCR tool for bills of lading, extracting shipping details, cargo information, and consignment data from any BOL format — including handwritten, scanned, and photographed documents — with 99%+ accuracy. One trucking company freed six full-time employees from manual BOL data entry by moving to Lido.

Lido extracts BOL data automatically using AI vision models that read document layout and context, so it handles any carrier's format without templates or per-carrier configuration. Connect a shared email inbox and every incoming BOL is processed automatically — shipper, consignee, cargo details, reference numbers, and weights extracted into structured columns.

Lido reads handwritten bills of lading in any condition — including rushed entries from loading docks and fields filled in by drivers — using AI vision models rather than character-level OCR. Disney Trucking processes 360,000 handwritten pages annually through Lido, and as one Lido sales engineer put it: "Lido has extracted things that I cannot read."

Lido automates BOL processing for logistics companies by extracting data from any carrier's format — handwritten, scanned, faxed, or digital — without templates or per-carrier setup. Documents arrive via email or upload, Lido extracts the data automatically, and structured output exports to CSV, Excel, or directly to your TMS or accounting system.

The best BOL OCR handles the conditions BOLs actually arrive in — handwritten entries from loading docks, carbon copies on colored paper, stamps layered over text, faxed and folded and moisture-damaged. Lido processes all of these at the same accuracy as clean digital PDFs.

Lido extracts the full set of BOL fields: shipper and consignee names and addresses, carrier, PRO and BOL numbers, PO numbers, ship and delivery dates, commodity descriptions, NMFC codes, freight class, piece count, weight, dimensions, declared value, freight charges, and special instructions. For non-standard fields — seal numbers, container numbers, temperature requirements, hazmat classifications — you specify what to extract in plain English. Works on any carrier's format without templates.

Freight brokers process BOLs from dozens or hundreds of carriers, each with a different format. Every new carrier means a new layout. Manual data entry creates a bottleneck that grows with shipment volume.

Lido eliminates this by connecting to a shared email inbox where carriers send BOLs. Every incoming document is automatically extracted into structured data — shipper, consignee, cargo, weight, references — regardless of carrier format. The data exports to Excel, Google Sheets, CSV, or your TMS. No per-carrier templates, no onboarding delay for new carriers, no maintenance when a carrier updates their BOL format. The manual data entry step goes from hours per day to minutes of periodic review.

Handwritten BOL entries — rushed piece counts, scrawled weights, driver signatures, dock annotations — are among the hardest text for any extraction tool to read. Standard OCR fails on handwriting that's smudged, partially overwritten, or cramped into small fields.

Lido uses AI vision models that understand handwriting in context. If the handwritten scrawl next to "Weight" could be "1,200" or "1,700," the AI uses context — the commodity, shipment size, adjacent fields — to determine the correct reading. This contextual approach delivers reliable accuracy on BOLs filled out on loading docks and in truck cabs, where writing quality is lowest.

Yes. Carbon copy BOLs — still standard in LTL, intermodal, and international freight — have faint text on colored paper (pink, yellow, or blue copies), uneven ink, and bleed-through from other copies. Faxed BOLs add compression artifacts and resolution loss.

Lido processes both at the same accuracy as clean digital documents. The AI reads through noise, degradation, ink bleed, and layered stamps to extract the underlying data. You can connect Lido to your e-fax service or upload scanned carbon copies directly — no preprocessing or image cleanup required.