Through the years, we have experienced how technology has helped many tasks easier to accomplish. One of these is the process of digitizing printed texts such as OCR. It stands for Optical Character Recognition and can also stand for Optical Character Reader). It is a technology where it converts a non-text file type (which has text) into a machine-encoded text. It could be done through electronic or mechanical means to aid in data entry needs. One of the best examples is to make passport information reading easier.
Instead of typing the non-text file, using Optical Character Recognition will get the job done faster. Though the process and the service sound complicated and advanced, there are many tools that are user-friendly. Just upload, wait for the process to finish, then view the new file in a different format. There might be a need for minor edits depending on the quality and clarity of the uploaded file.
There are different providers for this kind of service. It is true when the best things in life are for free, including these 3 service providers that can perform OCR. Even if they do not require a payment, the end product is highly accurate, secure, and fast.
This file converter site can be considered to be a very handy online tool not just for OCR, but for the majority of conversion needs. Despite the many options available on the website, it has a special section dedicated to online OCR. It can convert many file formats such as digital images and documents to a new editable document file such as Word, Excel, PDF, and .txt (Text). The OCR function is easy to use. It starts from uploading the file in different options such as from the computer’s file directory, Google Drive, drag and drop, and Dropbox. Select the appropriate language used in the uploaded document and choose the desired format it would like to convert to. Click on the ‘Recognize’ button and download once the system prompted that it is done. Due to the ease of use, users gave a 4.7-star rating from over 205,000 votes.
- ocr.space
The website ocr.space is one of the best as it has an ad-free user interface. However, the accepted files for processing are only limited to JPG, PNG, GIF, and PDF documents. It also supports multiple languages that include those that are non-Latin such as Arabic, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Japanese, Korean, and more. The free service has a file size limit of 1 MB with a maximum of 3 PDF page limits per day. If there is a need to process a bigger file, the price starts at US$30 with faster processing since it is using more servers with lower load times. The company also promises a guarantee of 100% uptime that will avoid unexpected disruption of service, especially when you need it the most.
- Free Online OCR (newocr.com)
From the name itself, it is another top free online Optical Character Recognition tool. As of writing, it has unlimited uploads and does not require registration. Some may find the site confusing due to the number of ads on the page. Even so, many use their service as it has a long list of supported languages – 120 to be exact. It can also input compressed files such as Unix compress, bzip2, bzip, and gzip. Multiple images in the ZIP archive can also be processed with ease. The output file formats are only limited to txt, doc, and pdf, which users may need to use another tool or software if there is a need to edit them.
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