Optical character recognition (OCR) software is a computer application that recognizes text in images, turning them into computer-readable text. OCR technology enables computers, such as servers or other online digital information systems, to recognize printed or written text, and to produce documents containing searchable text. In this blog post, I’ll show you some of the best OCR software alternatives available online and provide you with an easy way to use one of them and the background of each.
What can you do with OCR software?
You may have heard of OCR software, but what is it and what can it do? OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, which is the process of converting text from images into editable text. This can be done with the help of a computer program known as an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Application, which analyzes an image format and extracts the characters or letters within it.
There are many uses for this technology, including
Text Conversion: With the help of OCR software, you can convert documents that have been scanned into digital format into editable text files that can be opened in programs such as Microsoft Word or Pages. This is helpful if you have a collection of old books or magazines that need to be converted into digital format before they can be stored on an eReader or other device.
Data Entry: If you have access to large amounts of data that needs to be entered into your computer’s database system, then OCR software is a great way to speed up this process. Once you have converted all your scanned documents into a digital format using OCR software, then all you need to do is enter each piece of data one by one.
19 OCR Software Alternatives
Docparser
Docparser is an OCR program that can be used to extract text from scans and other images. DocParser includes a copy of the original document and an edited version, both in Unicode format. This allows you to search through your text even if it has been edited with Microsoft Word. The software is available in all languages, and it comes with customer support.
Free OCR software
Extract important data from Word, PDF and image files. Send to Excel, Google Sheets and 100’s of other formats and integrations.
Readiris
Readiris is a program that allows you to edit, convert, and transform paper files into multiple digital formats with just a few clicks—as well as annotate and aggregate PDFs. The tool allows you to add comments, annotations, and hyperlinks directly from Microsoft Office so that documents can be edited easily. It also lets you convert images, PDFs, or texts into editable formats such as Word or PowerPoint. The new recognition engine offers faster document management.
Readiris offers three sub-products:
Readiris PDF 17: $49
Readiris Pro 17: $59
Readiris Corporate 17: $89
IRIS products and solutions use proprietary technologies like OCR, PDF compression, AI-driven classification, and data extraction to streamline and secure organizational processes.
DEVONthink Pro
DEVONthink Pro is a powerful OCR software tool for organizing and analyzing data. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or a researcher, the software allows you to access and read documents all in a single application. Rather than having to switch between images, Word and Excel, etc., DEVONthink Pro gives you the ability to sync and analyze files between your Apple devices while working on other projects.
DEVONthink is an exceptionally powerful and versatile software tool that enables you to capture, organize, edit, and efficiently locate virtually any type of data imaginable.
Pricing
DevonThink is available at three price points:
Standard ($99)
Pro ($199)
Server ($499)
FineReader is a powerful piece of software that can be used to extract information from paper-based documents and PDFs.
Ephesoft
Ephesoft’s Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) platform and data enrichment solutions can maximize operational efficiency and human productivity for enterprises and the public sector. The platform uses AI, machine learning, and proprietary classification models to turn any document into structured, actionable data. Enterprises with a high volume of valuable documents—like invoices or records—can benefit by accelerating and streamlining processes, eliminating manual data entry, and boosting productivity. It’s time to automate your processes and get work done faster.
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 is an innovative leader in next-generation cloud-based and on-premise digital transformation solutions. Their customer-focused and responsive approach has made them a global leader, known for excellence in meeting customers’ constantly evolving needs. In addition to GlobalSearch® Cloud, the award-winning content management solution platform, Square 9 offers a diverse portfolio of products including solutions for document capture automation, business process automation, and web forms management.
Rossum
Rossum’s artificial intelligence enables businesses to capture data from financial business documents, using deep neural networks that reflect how humans read documents. Rossum’s solution eliminates the need for costly manual implementation, which is a game-changer in the data capture business.
OpenText Capture Center
OpenText Capture Center uses the most advanced document and character recognition capabilities available to turn documents into machine-readable information. The software allows you to reduce manual keying and paper handling, accelerate document processing, improve data quality, and save money.
Veryfi Receipts OCR & Expenses
Veryfi’s AI-based platform helps organizations extract and transform unstructured documents into structured data at scale. We’re trusted by enterprises and software companies alike, which use our APIs to eliminate manual data entry and human error, unlocking valuable business intelligence in seconds.
Nanonets
Nanonets are the easiest way to digitize your documents and extract relevant information from them using advanced OCR and Deep Learning technologies.
IBM Datacap
Datacap offers flexibility for capturing data from documents from a variety of sources, such as paper documents, application images, and digital files. Datacap helps enterprises reduce labor and paper costs by enabling workers to quickly identify insights resulting in faster, more accurate decisions.
Adobe Acrobat DC
Use Adobe Acrobat DC to make your job easier. This desktop version of the world’s best PDF solution lets you convert, edit and sign PDF files at your desk or on the go. And with Document Cloud services, you can create and export PDFs from anywhere — and stay connected to recent files across all your devices.
Tesseract
The Tesseract OCR engine is one of the most accurate open-source OCR engines available. It reads a binary, gray, or color image file and outputs text. A tiff reader is built in that will read uncompressed TIFF images, or libtiff can be added to read compressed images. There are language files for many languages, even for text set in Fraktur and blackletter typefaces.
OpenScan
OpenScan is an app that enables users to scan paper documents and create PDF or JPEG files. Its motto is “No ads. No data collection—we respect your privacy.”
Pocket Scanner
Pocket Scanner Ultimate is a standalone app that allows you to create JPEG scans, write captions and add texts to photos, and convert your documents, notes, whiteboards, and receipts to multi-page PDFs. It’s the best OCR software choice for you to scan, edit, and manage scans and documents.
CopyFish
Copyfish extracts text from images, videos, and PDFs on any website. You can use it if you want to search for the text (for example, on Google), store it, email it to someone, or translate the text into another language with an online translator. Until now, our only option was to retype the text by hand. Copyfish is easier and faster than that. For those of us who have issues reading small text, Copyfish gives us a chance to use a screen reader on the text inside images.
Online OCR
Free Online OCR is a program that makes it easy to convert scanned PDFs and images into editable Word, text converter, and Excel output formats.
Easy Screen OCR
You can use Easy Screen OCR to capture a snapshot and start the OCR process. This program will automatically detect the text from the image, and start the OCR process immediately. You can extract text to copy and paste in seconds. No more retyping, no need to retype any text from images. Try this free OCR application today!
GOCR
GOCR is an optical character recognition program, licensed under the GNU Public License. The software was originally written by Joerg Schulenburg and is now maintained by a team of developers. GOCR can be used with different front-ends—that is, interfaces for the user—which makes it easy to port to different operating systems and architectures. It can open many different image formats, including .tiff and .png image files. The quality of GOCR’s output has improved significantly in recent months
Kofax Omnipage
Kofax OmniPage offers industry-leading optical character recognition (OCR) to automate document conversion. Instantly turn paper and digital documents into files you can edit, search and share securely,—ideal for legal, financial, or other industries that require accuracy in their reports.
Where can you find free OCR software?
Convert Image To Text is a tool that converts any picture into editable and searchable text. The program uses OCR technology to convert images into editable and searchable .txt files. Convert Image To Text supports all major image formats such as JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, and many more. There are many free OCR software programs available on the market.
The most popular free OCR software is ABBYY FineReader, which is compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems. ABBYY FineReader offers users an easy-to-use interface and supports a number of different languages, including Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian and Spanish.
Other popular free OCR software includes PrimoPDF from Primo Technology and TextBridge from ABBYY. PrimoPDF allows users to convert PDF documents into editable text files using its conversion engine. TextBridge also uses an optical character recognition engine to convert images into editable extracted text files that can be opened in Microsoft Word or any other word processor application that supports Unicode text formats. Explore the Top 10 OCR Software to find the perfect tool for making your files searchable, editable, and easily shareable.
FAQ
Does Google have OCR?
Yes, Google has OCR scanning. Google has been collecting text from the web for a long time. To do this, it uses a method called Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This allows it to convert images of text into machine-readable text. Google’s OCR technology is available through its Cloud Vision API, which can detect different types of content within an image.
Is there OCR in Microsoft Office?
It is possible to use OCR in Microsoft Office. The Microsoft Office suite includes a number of applications that can be useful for capturing, manipulating, and converting images into text.
Does Windows 10 have OCR Capability?
The answer is yes. Microsoft has included a built-in OCR scanner (Optical Character Recognition) program in Windows 10 that allows you to convert interesting images into text files. This is very useful for those who have scanned documents or photos containing text and want to extract the contents for editing purposes.
