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What is OCR?

Optical character recognition (OCR) software convert pictures to text. OCR software analyze a document and compare it with fonts stored in their database and/or by noting features typical to characters. Some OCR software also put it through a spell checker to “guess” unrecognized words. 100% accuracy is difficult to achieve, but a close approximation is what most software strive for.

OCR software can be productivity shortcuts for students, researchers, and office workers. So let’s play with a few more and find the best OCR software for your needs.

1. OCR Using Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote has advanced OCR functionality which works on both pictures and handwritten notes.

• Drag a scan or a saved picture into OneNote. You can also use OneNote to clip part of the screen or an image into OneNote.
• Right click on the inserted picture and select Copy Text from Picture. The copied optically recognized text goes into the clipboard and you can now paste it back into OneNote or into any program like Word or Notepad.

OneNote can also extract text from a multi-page printout with one click. Insert a multiple page printout in OneNote and then right-click on the currently selected page.

• Click Copy Text from this Page of the Printout to grab text from this selected page only.
• Click Copy Text from All the Pages of the Printout to copy text from all the pages in one shot as you can see below.

Do note that the accuracy of the OCR depends on the quality of the photo too. That’s why optically recognizing handwriting is still a bit fuzzy for OneNote and other OCR software in the market. That said, it is one of the key features in OneNoteThe 13 Best New OneNote Features You Haven't Tried YetThe 13 Best New OneNote Features You Haven't Tried YetMicrosoft has added many new perks to OneNote for Windows 10. Here are the best new OnenNote features in OneNote that you may have missed.Read More you should use at every opportunity.

Want to know how OneNote compares against a paid OCR software? Read our comparison of OneNote and OmniPageFree vs. Paid OCR Software: Microsoft OneNote and Nuance OmniPage ComparedFree vs. Paid OCR Software: Microsoft OneNote and Nuance OmniPage ComparedOCR scanner software lets you convert text in images or PDFs into editable text documents. Is a free OCR tool like OneNote good enough? Let's find out!Read More.

2. SimpleOCR

The difficulty I was having with handwriting recognition using MS tools, could have found a solution in SimpleOCR. But the software offers handwriting recognition only as a 14 day free trial. Machine print recognition though does not have any restrictions.

The software looks outdated as it hasn’t been updated since version 3.1, but you can still try it out for its simplicity.

• Set it up to read directly from a scanner or by adding a page (JPG, TIFF, BMP formats).
• SimpleOCR offers some control over the conversion through text selection, image selection and text ignore features.
• Conversion to text takes the process into a validation stage; a user can correct discrepancies in the converted text using an in-built spell-checker.
• The converted file can be saved to a DOC or TXT format.

SimpleOCR was fine with normal text, but its handling of multi-column layouts was a disappointment. In my opinion, the conversion accuracy of the Microsoft tools was considerably better than SimpleOCR.

Download:SimpleOCR for Windows (Free, Paid)

Scanner Ocr software, free download

3. Photo Scan

Photo Scan is a free Windows 10 OCR app you can download from the Microsoft Store. Created by Define Studios, the app is ad-supported but that does not mar the experience. The app is an OCR scanner and a QR code reader rolled into one.

Omnipage Trial Download

Point the app to an image or a file printout. You can also use your PC’s web cam to give it an image to look at. The recognized text is displayed in an adjacent window.

The text to speech feature is a highlight. Click the speaker icon and the app will read aloud what it just scanned.

It’s not great with handwritten text, but printed text recognition was adequate. When everything is done, you can save the OCR text in multiple formats like Text, HTML, Rich Text, XML, Log format etc.

Download:Photo Scan (Free, in-app purchase)

4. (a9t9) Free OCR Windows App

(a9t9) Free OCR software is a Universal Windows Platform app. So you can use it with any Windows device you own. There is also an online OCR equivalent that is powered by the same API.

(a9t9) supports 21 languages for parsing your images and PDF to text. The app is also free to use, and the ad support can be removed with an in-app purchase. Like most free OCR programs, it is idea for printed documents and not handwritten text.

Download:a9t9 Free OCR (Free, in-app purchase)

5. Capture2Text

Capture2Text is a free OCR software for Windows 10 that gives you keyboard shortcuts to quickly OCR anything on the screen. It also does not require any installation.

Use the default keyboard shortcut WinKey + Q to activate the OCR process. You can then use the mouse to select the portion you want to capture. Hit Enter and then selection will be optically recognized. The captured and converted text will appear in a popup and will also be copied to the clipboard.

Capture2Text uses Google’s OCR engine and supports 100+ languages. It uses Google Translate to convert the captured text to other languages. Look inside the Settings to tweak the different options provided by the software.

Download:Capture2Text (Free)

6. Easy Screen OCR

Easy Screen OCR isn’t free. But I mention it here because it is fast and convenient. You can also use it freely for up to 20 times without any subscription. The software works from the system tray or the taskbar. Right-click on Easy Screen OCR icon and select Capture from the menu. Take a screenshot of any image, website, video, document, or anything else on the screen by dragging the mouse cursor.

Easy Screen OCR then displays a dialog with three tabs. The screenshot tab gives you a preview of the captured text. Click the OCR button to read the text from the image. The optically converted text can now be copied from the Text tab of the dialog.

You can set the recognition languages for the OCR in the software’s Preferences. More than 100 languages are supported as the software uses Google’s OCR engine.

Download:Easy Screen OCR ($9 per month)

Also: OCR With Google Docs

If you are away from your own computer, then try the OCR powers of Google Drive. Google Docs has an in-built OCR program that can recognize text in JPEG, PNG, GIF, and PDF files. But all files should be 2 MB or less and text should be 10 pixels or higher. Google Drive can also auto-detect the language in the scanned files, though accuracy with non-Latin characters might not be great.

1. Log into your Google Drive account.
2. Click on New > File Upload. Alternatively, you can also click on My Drive > Upload Files.
3. Browse to the file on your PC that you want to convert from PDF or image to text. Click the Open button to upload the file.
4. The document is now in your Google Drive. Right-click on the document and click on Open with > Google Docs.

5. Google converts your PDF or image file to text with OCR and opens it in a new Google document. The text is editable and you can correct the parts where the OCR failed to read it right.
6. You can download the finetuned documents in the multiple formats Google Drive supports. Choose from File > Download as menu.

The Free OCR Software You Can Pick

Though the free tools were adequate with printed text, they failed with normal cursive handwritten text. My personal preference for offhand OCR use leans towards Microsoft OneNote because you can make it a part of your note-taking workflow. Photo Scan is a Windows Store universal app, and it supports line breaks with the range of document formats you can save to.

But don’t let your search for free OCR converters end here. There are many other alternative ways to OCR your images and text. And we have put a few online OCR tools4 Free Online OCR Tools Put to the Ultimate Test4 Free Online OCR Tools Put to the Ultimate TestWith advances in OCR technology, converting text and Images from your scanned PDF document into the editable text formats is easier. We tested a few free online OCR tools so you won't have to.Read More to the test before. Keep them close by too.

Image Credit: nikolay100/Depositphotos

Explore more about: File Conversion, Image Editor, OCR.

1. Hi @Sai , thank you for your post!

   Thank you for your post!

   I am wondering about after using above OCR software, could I obtain which patch in the input image belongs to which word in the output?

   Best,

   Si

2. I only recently discovered that Google Keep (note-taking app) can also do OCR. This is what I use.

3. My OCR needs are very lite so I use Google Keep when I need to pull some txt out of a picture. Look in the options when creating a new note.

4. Is there a pay choice that you would say comes closest to 100% accuracy when OCRing Tiffs?

5. The free version of PDF-XChange Editor includes an amazingly accurate and easy-to-use OCR function. (In addition to many other great features).

   • PDF-XChanger Editor does what I need. Thanks for the comment dude.

6. Services are available to convert image to text any font any format to editable text. Providing software also. Whatsapp to 9004213189. Affordable price

7. Hello Saikut. Really interesting article. I have tried One Note, but do not get the right click option of 'copy text from picture'. I have Windows 10 Ver 1703 64bit OS build 15063.540 plus KB4022405 with One Note ver 17.8471.57791.0. Has One Note and/or Windows changed to stop the OCR function form working, or am I doing something wrong?
   I have tried 'drag and drop' and 'copy and paste' to input a scanned jpg image of printed text, and the right click options are 'cut/copy/paste/save as/delete/create hyperlink/picture'. 'Picture' only allows editing, such as rotation etc.
   Any advice appreciated. Thank you. Howard

   • Howard: did you get an answer to this question? I have the same situation.

     Richard

8. I didn't expect One Note is this accurate. Thanks for this! Saved me lots of time.

9. Saikat, thank you very much. I ran across your site while doing a search on 'OCR software.' I was thinking of paying for OCR, and was willing to pay, but their downloads did not do the job. All I wanted to do was to be able to edit a 5-page scanned document. The OneNote method you mentioned worked! Beats retyping all of that text! And it turned out to be free!

10. I recommend Docs Matter(Android version) developed by Yunmai Technology. It’s also a professional document scanner and document management application. Easy to use and have a good recognition result. You can download it from Google Play.

11. my copy of note 2007 when clicked where your mouse showed did not convert picture to text, it magnified the screen for copying.

12. Thanks. For someone who became dependent rather than addicted to OCR when I discovered it on my HP printer/scanner when I was teaching, but didn't bother to look into it, I have missed it sorely now I am retired but enmeshed in Committee work and creating documents from several sources with information that needs to be presented in both original and edited formats...Lordy what a time saver! Thanks again for making the choice clearer.

13. Thank you very informative I was jus about looking a OCR software ... OneNote is good enough for what I want to do. did not know onenote could do it

14. free ocr is good, gt text sucks...i downloaded it and it looks shitty

15. GT Text is very good too.

16. Very very very good post. Thank you very much for your work. It is very simple to do it with OneNote.

    Best Regards.

    A Friend who liked your post.

17. Hi,

    I have abbyyfine reader but it not give 100% accuracy.guide me

    • Actually, there is currently no software that can give you 100% accuracy. In the best condition, OmniPage OCR can give you 99.2% accuracy for recognizing, it's the highest ever

18. Hello,

    I want to convert images to text that have mathematical notes printed. So these notes has mathematical signs and I sued Abbyy Find reader but having problems with that. Can you suggest a good software that will probably convert the accurate sign in the text format ?

    Thanks in advance!!

    • Yes whatsapp to 9004213189. We have the software. And we are also doing service. Any complicated font can be converted..

19. I already had OneNote on my computer and I just used this to convert the text from a PDF that I just scanned in. Thanks so much it worked perfectly! Yay!

    Marlene Stewart :D

20. i need to convert cursive writting test image to simple text .Please suggest me software.

21. I tried both the TopOCR and the SimpleOCR to convert some papers I had written in high school and both failed. Instead of coherent words, I got a bunch of letters, numbers, and punctuations. I don't know if it's my handwriting, if because the other side can be faintly seen, or a combination of both. Oh well back to the standard way of typing them out

22. Hi Saikat,

    what is the best OCR to use for extracting information from receipts? And is there an OCR that allow rules to be written and define for images. Example if the OCR scan an predefined image of a house, then it writes the word assigned to that image?

23. I would like to convert some mathematical algorithm with supper script. OCR will be best for my solution?

24. Hi Saikat

    Can You guide me

    How to compare in word ducuments

    One more thing i have image and txt ducments also that i want check for accuracy

    please give me a any software link. fastest QC software i need error report also

    Regards
    Ramesh

25. HI

    I have image documents and txt ducments both i want compare for accuracy pls guide me for

    • any software i need

    • Proof reader isvthe best for we are having that. Whaysapp 9004213189

26. I installed FreeOCR and that seems to work very well for me. I have only used it on typed and clear documents and not anything with freehand writing. But, it did the job I was looking for it to do.

    I tried to install Simple OCR but didn't. They seemed to want you to create an account with all sorts of information. I didn't want to do that for something that's supposed to be free.

    So, my vote goes to FreeOCR.

27. Thanks for your suggestions. They are helpful for me. Simple OCR looks cool because it can recognize handwriting. When choosing OCR software, I always think about the recognition accuracy and recognition speed. As I know, Yunmai Technology is also very professional on OCR technology. Yunmai Document Recognition is really great for me. The average time for recognition of a document less than 6 seconds. The recognition accuracy can reach 99%. It can convert documents into PDF, Word, Text format files.

28. Please tell me how to convert an image which has a font type which is not in the free OCR database and any other database. I have the ttf file for the font type in the image. Please tell me how to add in any ocr database and convert them?

29. threw at it .. not 'through' at it :-)
    Thx for the post ... very informative

    • Ah. Typo. Thanks for the catch :)

      • While we are on it - one i regularly make accidentally

        read their How to Get the Best - not read there How to Get the Best

        • Sorry meant to say interesting review thankks, looking to see if buying HP's Readiris is worth it - any thoughts

30. hi i tried to convert 'Vladimir Script' font image to text but it not works .

31. Hello! I used kitpdf.com to convert webpages into pdf documents and it generated good and fast results. It's simple to use, no need to install the tool, just upload the needed files. I recommend using it.

    • Thanks for the name. It looks simple and useful.

32. I was looking for the simplest thing... to convert a jpg file to word text. I did not need any of the fancy features. The cost of the software was outrageous. Then I read your article. One Note is free and does what I need. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. You are a life saver.

33. http://www.globinch.com/2010/0...

34. This is really useful article. Thank you for sharing this tools

35. Great post. I have FreeOCR - is good enough

36. Great Post, i have searched for google to get some useful info on how to convert images into text but found nothing better than this Post.

    Thanks Alot for sharing such useful piece of information.

37. I have been searching for these free tools for a while and I realized after reading this article that I forgot Microsoft Offices comes with one.

38. Great Article and overview of tools.

39. hi jitnderpalingh i hv used your freeocr that was good i m happy use it. try it and check it

40. THIS is good and like it...............dud

    • ITS NOT GETTING DOWNLOADED

41. Thanks buddy !

42. I needed to OCR a pdf in Spanish: FreeOCR's link for languages is 404, SimpleOCR doesn't do Spanish, TopOCR I forgot to try (doh!)

    But I got great results from the online ocr service OCRterminal. I just had to wait 18 hours for it.

43. Using EPSON WORKFORCE 500
    Scanning old paper manuals
    Using Tiff Combine to merge them
    Using MS Office Document Imaging to OCR
    Now have a sort of indexed electronic version of manual

    Have noticed if I clean first with Paint the OCR doesn't work.

44. Does anyone know where to get other languages for FreeOCR? The link provided in the software is 404.

45. same as last post. but i'm also looking for a tech that can extract contact information (wherever it may be located on my system) and automatically organize it and load it into my address book.

    any ideas?

46. PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP;

    I am in need to be ability to scan my hand written documents (via my scanner) into my MAC and edit the scan documents.

    The scan converts into a pdf file, however, I am not able to make any edits....HELP PLEASE.

    DQ

47. I am puzzled that the title of the post is 'top 5 free', yet your first two of five are paid Microsoft products - neither free as in freedom, nor free of charge.

48. oh great! i m searching for this software

49. I realized I have ScanSoft PDF converter, which seemed to be the best. It is not free but came in my laptop through my work company.

50. Abbyy Finereader, nothing comes close. Not free but for ocr or doc conversion it's not got a real rival.

51. The freeOCR.net site says it does not work with PDF?

52. I have been looking for something to do such thing with scanned pages in a pdf document. With the above cue I was able to copy text from entire pdf scanned pages. I had to insert the pdf in OneNote and use the option to insert all pages and convert into text. Now I have my 250 page user manual, which was all paper, in a searchable, editable word document!

    Thanks
    Ravi

53. How about JOCR (everrex.com/)? How does it compare to the above tools?

54. mac users could try pretending they own a Canon Pixma MultiFunction Printer and download the attendant software. Then read from image files already scanned ( or screen-grabbed ) from elsewhere. But make sure your DPI is 150x150 pixels. read the online manual.

    • I wanna get the images to word but I not getting a software please share to me.

55. hi,excuse me...
    I installed 'Microsoft Office Document Imaging. But why not see? Not appear in Microsoft programs

    • ok I solved ... I tried both SimpleOCR, TopOCR, but with poor results

      • I have used Image To OCR of Soft Solutions
        The only good quality ocr software I was able to freely download and try was Image to OCR Converter available at http://products.softsolutionslimited.com/img2ocr/index.htm
        It does a fairly good job of ocr processing.

56. Mac users can use online OCR applications, one of which has been covered here before - //www.makeuseof.com/dir/ocrterminal-convert-scanned-documents-into-text/

57. Google has entered into OCR...tesseract-ocr which can used in your applications.

    Regards,
    Bharath

58. Any good OCR applications for mac users?

    • You might want to try ABBYY FineReader