OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition which is an application to convert image files to equivalent text files. This can save you a lot of time because instead of typing from an image, you can convert it into text and make necessary changes.
There are many OCR applications available in the market. To make your job easier, we have chosen the top 5 which you can straight away install and start using.
You can either install an OCR tool on your desktop if you have to use it repeatedly, or you can use the Online OCR tools through internet.
First, we can discuss about the top Desktop OCR tools.
Desktop Free OCR Software
Wondershare PDFelement is an All-in-one desktop based OCR tool that can be used to work on PDF files and converting them to editable formats of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Rich text formats etc.
Top Features of Wondershare PDFelement
- Editing PDF files directly
- Adding images, comments and objects
- Splitting and merging one or more PDF files
- Appending more pages
- Convert to usable format
- Built-in image enhancement tools
- Optical recognition
- Password protection
- Form creation
However, hand-written text will not work as the accuracy is not guaranteed. The text should be on top of a clean background without extra borders or lines.
This tool is one of the most popular applications to be used to extract text from scanned PDF documents.
Basic Features Of Wondershare PDF Converter Pro
- Converting PDF to multiple formats
- Save different file formats as PDF
- Multi-user License for Individuals and Businesses
- Password protection
- Conversion of scanned PDF to editable text
- Maintains quality
- Batch conversion
- Merge more than one PDF files into single file
- Image formats like JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIFF are supported
All these features comes with a very nominal price, 24/7 support and Money-back guarantee. You can try the trial version for free to check if it suits your needs.
The above tools are downloadable tools on your computer. There are Online OCR tools available which can be used on the go.
Online Free OCR Software
1. Google Drive
You have the option of opening your scanned PDF of image files using Google Doc. This application will extract the text from your file and output the result in Google doc format. While using this feature, mke sure that the original formatting is not altered. Link: Click Here
2. nlineOCR Service
This multi-lingual application can be used to convert scanned and image files into Microsoft Word, Excel and text. It is compatible with around 30 languages. You can use this tool for files up to 4MB size. Link: Click Here
3. OCR Terminals
OCR Terminals is a part of ABBYY FineReader which offers some excellent service in recognizing PDF documents. It is one of the best free online PDF recognizer available in the market now. Link: Click Here
We have discussed the various options for your PDF conversion needs that are of high quality as well as affordable. So do check out this top free OCR software list before you actually decide to choose one.
Vivian
Thanks for your recommendation. I heard of them before, but I did not use it. I am using Yunmai Document Recognition, a document reader developed by Yunmai Technology. It enables scanned documents and images to be transformed into searchable and editable document formats. It is able to extract the text from an image of a document, and then save it as text file.
MJ
Thanks for your suggestion Vivian.
Cheers
MJ