Here’s your shortcut to free OCR programs for discovering all your solutions in this category. Stooping over converting hand-done or scanned pictures into a form that can be read and edited if necessary, isn’t an easy task without the right tools at your disposal. Consider yourself equipped for the job once you’ve gone through our list and picked an option in this department. It can’t hurt, they’re free after all.
1 – FreeOCR:
Fashioned for Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8, this particular program lets you import content directly via most Twain scanners. It further has the ability to open nearly all multi-page Tiff images, fax documents, PDFs and popular image file formats and display the words in plain text. The outcome can then be converted into the Microsoft Word format so that it can be worked upon smoothly.
Utilizing the latest Tesseract V3 engine, the user-friendly utility claims to provide increased accuracy as well as a page layout analysis feature. It is also available in different languages such as Danish, English, Finnish, Italian, Norway, Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Polish and Swedish.
2 – SimpleOCR:
‘Do you dread having to retype your documents?,’ quips the brains behind this endeavor. Well, you wouldn’t need to undergo that dilemma as long as you have a scanner and this sparkling gem in your possession. Get an electronic copy of the same by converting the paper content into edible text so you can tweak it in Word or WordPerfect. Some of the program’s features include Despeckle, image retention, simplified error correction, huge dictionary, format retention, multiple language recognition, plain text extraction and support for various input formats.
And just as the name suggests, this entrant in our roster is simple to use and hence can be utilized at home, at school and even at corporate level. It’s further compatible with Windows 95-2008 and above.
3 – OnlineOCR.net:
As you might have already guessed, this one needs absolutely no installation or downloads as everything you require is spread out online. All your conversions can be seamlessly carried out through this web-based program. You can convert scanned PDF documents, photos, faxes and even digital camera captured images into editable electronic documents.
What’s more, the altered files should appear just like the original, complete with columns, tables, graphics and bullets. You’ll also be able to acquire the results in various output formats such as MS Word, MS Excel and plain text. It even boasts of being multilingual as it supports 32 languages like Finnish, Russian, German, Danish, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.
4 – Boxoft:
Perplexed as to what this particular inclusion in our array has to offer? Well, much like the rest, this one too aids you in extracting text bits from a slew of image sorts. It can analyze multi-column text with ease and even forays onto the scene packed with optimized tools like crop, rotate and de-skew, among others.
The program also has the ability to recognize characters that are slapped across the page dressed in different languages. These dialects include English, German, Dutch, Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish and Basque, to name a few. You can further decide whether you want your text to be saved as TXT or ZIP file formats.
5 – Free-OCR.com:
Here’s another delight that can be availed of without dabbling in any sort of downloads or installations. All you have to do is scan the desired document, put it through this program and voila, you’ll be treated to an editable version of the same. However, you still might have to read through the content just to make sure it’s all been accurately copied. This optical character recognition tool even asserts that it can manage photos that bear multi-column text bits. You can also upload image files in formats such as GIF, BMP, JPG, TIFF and PDF. This interesting option supports a host of languages like French, Portuguese, Greek, Latvian, Catalan, Bulgarian, German, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Vietnamese, Hungarian and Czech. What’s more, you won’t have to sign across any dotted lines or take pains to register before using the service. However, the maker reveals that the image size has to be within 2MB and no wider or higher than 5000 pixels. Furthermore, you can only conduct 10 image uploads per hour.
6 – MobileOCR:
After mentioning a few online and downloadable program solutions for desktops, here is a couple of applications that do the job directly via your smartphones. The developer of this Android app calls on all you tech enthusiasts out there to ‘turn your smartphone into a document scanner with character recognition.’ This contender in our roundup can turn the content present in your picture into regular text and is compatible with over 25 languages. There’s even a Pro version that’s available for just under $4.
7 – Image To Text:
Apple loyalists need not look so glum as we’ve even roped in an app that’s fashioned for devices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Through this portable program, you’ll be able to extract editable ASCII text from pictures snapped through your gadget’s camera. Once you’ve clicked the document, you simply have to email it to yourself or any other individual that requires the editable version.
You or your acquaintance will then be endowed with not only the picture but also a text file that includes the extracted content. Currently, you can take advantage of this piece only in one language namely, English.
Conclusion:
Now the aforementioned software options may not always deliver 100% results, however they can still save you a lot of time and effort as far as copying and editing content from pictures are concerned. It can be anything from PDF files to words slapped across a photo. Simply scan the matter and give it the conversion treatment through any of these gems. And once you’ve zeroed in on your favorite ones, do leave your mentions in the box situated just below.