Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you need to make a digital copy of a paper document and save it on your computer. If you’re a touch typist, you can easily write a small paragraph or two quickly, but what if the document spans several pages? It can be time consuming and at the same time annoying.
Of course, you can scan a document and then use a free online OCR tool to convert the image to text, but the chances of finding a scanner nearby can be very low. The chances of having a smartphone nearby, possibly an Android, are significantly higher and sufficient to convert the document to digital format using OCR.
We’ll see how you can use your Android phone’s camera to take a picture of a document, then convert it to plain text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. (Image credit: _Max-B)
This feature is already in Google Docs for Android and now also in Google Drive, which is a feature that Google Docs has become a part of recently. Let us see how to put this feature to use.
Extract text from photos
Step 1: Download and install the Google Drive App on your Android device (formerly Google Docs). Once the app is installed, launch it and press the menu button to select New option.
Step 2: Then you will be asked about the type new document or Upload that you want to do. Here, select Document from photo to open the phone’s default camera.
Step 3: This can be a tricky part. Now you will have to click on the photo of the document you want to do OCR on. For best results, make sure you’re in autofocus and the image is sharp. Hold your hand steady and then take a photo.
Note: After processing the photo, the app may prompt you that your photo may be blurry and if you want to take another photo. In my case, no matter how careful I am, I always see this warning. So you’ll have to trust your instincts and if you think you’ve done well, hit the continue button.
Step 4: Finally, give the document a name and select the option that says convert the file into a Google Docs document. Photos will then be uploaded to Google Drive and processed at the same time. Once the upload is complete, you can open the document on your phone or computer to view the recognized text.
Conclusion
On average, depending on image clarity and text format, the accuracy of recognized text will be around 70% to 90%. You may have to manually edit the document in many places, but that is nothing compared to writing the entire document.
Additionally, this feature won’t work on handwritten and artistic fonts, and best results are achieved when the document is in Times New Roman, Arial, Caliber, or other plain fonts.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
