How to extract text from images (OCR)

Back in college, one of my friends asked me to edit one of his crucial end-of-year essays, and it didn't seem like a big deal, so I agreed, but then he took a screenshot of the essay and sent it off. That to me instead of sending the document itself. This, of course, made editing much more difficult than necessary.

If only I knew about text extraction technology back then!

These days, you have so many free and effective options when you want to extract text from an image instead of typing it all by hand. Here are the best we've found. For comparison, we'll run the image above through each tool and show you what the resulting text turned out to be for accuracy's sake.

Using OneNote

OneNote has been one of the best free OCR tools for several years now. It's one of those lesser-known features that users rarely use, but once you start using it, you'll be amazed at how fast and accurate it can be. In fact, the ability to extract text is a feature that puts OneNote ahead of Evernote.

Instructions for text extraction:

1. Open any page in OneNote, preferably a blank one.
2. Navigate to Insert> Images and select the image file.
3. Right-click on the inserted image and select Copy text from image .
4. Paste where you want. Delete the inserted image if you wish.

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Relleno de la bestia que vio la criatura criatura dios luz medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo adelante firmamento alado mares sobre luces hembra.

Download - Microsoft OneNote (Free)

Using Photron Image Translator

Photron Image Translator is a free app available in the Windows Store that can be used on both desktop and tablet versions of Windows 10. It has two additional features that you may find useful:one, the ability to translate the extracted text into another language, and two , the ability to read text aloud.

Instructions for text extraction:

1. When prompted, choose Image as the input method.
2. When prompted, choose Gallery as the font type.
3. Select the image file.

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz de dios medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo adelante firmamento alado mares sobre luces hembra.

Download - Photoron Image Translator (Free)

Using FreeOCR

FreeOCR is commonly cited as one of the best free tools for extracting text from images and for good reason:it's pretty good at what it does. It hasn't been updated since mid-2015 at the time of writing, but we haven't had any issues, even on Windows 10.

One nifty feature is that you can export the extracted text directly to Microsoft Word format. Unfortunately, if your source image isn't high enough resolution, FreeOCR won't be as accurate as some of the other methods (as the results below demonstrate).

Instructions for text extraction:

1. Click the Open button.
2. Select the image file.
3. Click the Clear Text Window button.
4. Click on the LOC button and choose Current OCR Page .

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz de dios medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento se movió, el primer árbol con alas tenía la criatura, el quinto, el bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo hacia adelante mares de alas sobre peleas femala

Download - FreeOCR (Free)

Using Copyfish

Copyfish is a simple extension for Chrome that is a bit more flexible than the other tools here. Instead of giving you an image file, you can use it to select any region of the browser screen and instantly extract text from there. If you are viewing an image, you can select the entire image instead of downloading and sending it to another application.

Instructions for text extraction:

1. Open the image in Chrome. It can be local or on the web.
2. Click on the Copyfish button next to the URL address bar.
3. Select the area of ​​the image with the text..

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz de dios medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo adelante firmamento alado mares sobre luces hembra.

Download - Copyfish (Free)

Using Google Drive

There are so many Google Drive tips and tricks that can make your life easier, but here's one that most users don't know about:Google Drive can take any image and convert it to text with a single click. So if Google Drive is your cloud storage method of choice, you should start using this feature today.

Instructions for text extraction:

1. Upload the image file to Google Drive.
2. On the web version of Google Drive, right-click the image file and select Open with> Google Docs .

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz divina en medio de dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo hacia adelante. Mares del firmamento alado sobre luces femeninas..

Website - Google Drive (free)

Using OCR online

Let's say you don't want to install anything. You have an image file and all you want to do is extract the text as quickly and comfortably as possible. For that, online OCR is probably what you are looking for. It's simple, it's fast, and it can generate text, Word, or Excel formats.

Instructions for text extraction:

1. Click Select File and select the image file.
2. Select the output format you want, most likely text.
3. Enter the CAPTCHA code if necessary.
4. Click Convert .

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz de dios medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo adelante firmamento alado mares sobre luces hembra.

Website - Online OCR

Using PowerShell

PowerShell is basically an advanced command line alternative Command Line vs. Windows PowerShell:What's the difference? Command Prompt vs. Windows PowerShell:What's the Difference? Windows users can get by without using Command Prompt or PowerShell. But with Windows 10 and new features just around the corner, it might be time for us to learn. Read More Windows 10 includes a lot of PowerShell cmdlets and scripts 15 Advanced Tasks PowerShell Can Handle in Windows 10 15 Advanced Tasks PowerShell Can Handle in Windows 10 PowerShell is similar to the command line, but better. It is a powerful system administration tool. We've compiled 15 tasks, some simple, some complex, that benefit from the magic of PowerShell. Read More

This setting is somewhat advanced, so feel free to skip it if you've never used PowerShell before. For this to work, you'll need to obtain a subscription key for the Microsoft OCR API, as well as a ClientID and Client_secret for the Microsoft Bing Translation API. It also requires internet connectivity.

Here are the full instructions for using Get-ImageText.

Text extraction results:

Nuestra carne mayor tiene dos segundos delante de ti. Rellene la bestia que vio la criatura criatura luz de dios medio dos. Después de eso, los mares de segundo mar tienen, el cuarto dicho propio no se da primero. Conjunto de reglas del firmamento masculino dado. Divide el vacío que se movió debajo del tercero no. Vivo. Todos los frutos Eso para. El tipo de firmamento que movía el primer árbol bueno alado tenía la criatura quinto bueno, el quinto y el anterior, juntos, el cuarto arriba, sometido. Grandes sobre el pasto viviendo adelante firmamento alado mares sobre luces hembra.

PowerShell is built into Windows 7, 8, and 10, but has since been made open source and cross-platform, meaning it can also be installed and used on Linux How to install and use PowerShell on Linux How to install and use PowerShell on Linux In 2016, Microsoft's open source PowerShell and a cross-platform iteration debuted. In this article, I will show you how to install, run, and use PowerShell on Linux. Read more.

How to extract text??

There is no best method as far as I am concerned. You should choose the one that is most comfortable for you, which is probably the method that belongs to an application that you already use. I use OneNote all the time, so that's what I prefer.

What type of material are you extracting text from? What is your preferred tool to get the job done? Share with us in the comments below! We'd love to hear from you.