Plenty of OCR software programs are available in the market for free. If you don’t know about OCR or Optical character recognition software, they are used for converting pictures into text. Students and working professionals already love this software as it is beneficial for them. On that note, let’s check out the best OCR tools available in 2019.
1. Microsoft OneNote
It is possible to convert both handwritten notes and pictures using Microsoft OneNote as it comes with advanced OCR functionality. Firstly, drag the file that you wish to convert into OneNote. Then, right click on the picture and choose Copy Text from Picture. The copied text goes directly to the clipboard, and you can paste it wherever you want. You must know that the quality of the photo is directly connected with the OCR accuracy. OneNote is simply one of the best free OCR software available in the market.
2. Photo Scan
Photo Scan comes as a QR code reader and OCR scanner merged into one. It is being offered by Define Studios and easily available for free on the Microsoft Store. You need to point the tool to the file for converting. The converted text will be shown to you on the next window. One of the highlights of Photo Scan is the text to speech feature. Once you are done with converting, you get the option to save the file in various formats such as HTML, Text, Rich Text, XML and more.
3. Capture2Text
Capture2Text allows you to OCR anything that you see on the screen with the use of keyboard shortcuts. It is a free Windows 10 OCR software that doesn’t even need installation. You can the WinKey + Q shortcut for activating the OCR process. For selecting the desired portion from the screen, use your mouse. Press the Enter button, and the selected text will be optically recognized and appear on popup as well as a copy to the clipboard.
4. SimpleOCR
SimpleOCR does not restrict machine print recognition but provides handwriting recognition only with the free trial available for 14 days only. It comes as simple to use software for converting pictures to text. You can save the converted files in the form of TXT or DOC. Though, this software has not been updated since its version 3.1. Download the SimpleOCR software for free from the official website.
5. (a9t9) Free OCR
You can use the (a9t9) Free OCR software on any of the Windows devices that you have. There is even an online OCR for you to convert files. It supports up to 21 languages and is completely free for users. However, the ads can be removed through in-app purchase. This software program is best for printed documents but doesn’t work well with handwritten text.
6. Easy Screen OCR
This software is not free for users but is ideal for use. You can access it from the taskbar in your PC. It uses Google’s OCR engine and supports around 100 languages. Choose the desired language as per your choice to use it perfectly. Drag the mouse cursor of your computer for capturing the screen of any document, image, video, website, or anything else available on the screen.
You can try the in-built OCR program of Google docs if you can’t access your computer. Here’s the process:
- Open your Google Drive account by logging in.
- Click the New option and then File Upload option or you can go to My Drive and then Update Files.
- Find the file that you want to convert in the computer. Choose the Open button for uploading the selected PDF or image file.
- The selected file will now be there in your Google Drive. Right-click on the file and then hit the Open with option and Google Docs later to see the converted file.
Hence, you can Google for converting your PDF or image file to text through OCR as well. Editing the text in the converted file is possible too. Choose any of the OCR tools from above and get the text version through any file.
Davis Johnson is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2002. As a technical expert, Davis has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as office.com/setup.
Source: https://daviseducationsource.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/top-6-ocr-tools-for-converting-images-to-text/
