How to OCR Images on iOS (All iPhone)
You’ve probably found yourself in a situation where you’re struggling to read text from an image, constantly zooming in and out and straining your eyes. Whether you’re a student who hates rewriting information from the whiteboard or someone who deals with a lot of documents on a daily basis, OCR is a quick and easy fix. iPhones are known for their high-quality images and feature-packed design, but they still don’t have the ability to convert images into their textual equivalents. Fortunately, there is a way to complement their existing abilities – by using a revolutionary OCR scanner app.
What Is ScreenOCR for iOS?
Why struggle with manual work when you can automate it? By using optical character recognition technology on text-filled images, ScreenOCR aims to do exactly that. Its implementation of the highly advanced Google engine allows for accurate and efficient extraction of text from pictures, regardless of whether it was handwritten or typed out. The images can either be selected from your phone’s gallery or snapped on the spot with the built-in camera app.
Besides native support for the English language, ScreenOCR is capable of recognizing more than 50 other different languages. If you require immediate translation, this feature is available as well by selecting the wanted target language from the options menu. Also, the background color doesn’t negatively impact its overall accuracy – both blackboard and whiteboard text are scanned with the utmost precision.
The free version is available for lifetime personal use. It comes with six free credits each day and four additional ones available through watching ads. Upgrading to the Pro version gets you an ad-free experience, batch processing support, as well as unlimited access.
ScreenOCR Benefits (Update v2.0.0)
– Reliable & Fast
When you’re in a pinch and need that written representation as fast as possible, ScreenOCR won’t let you down. iPhone is by nature a very snappy device, and you need a suitable app that can keep up with it. With the built-in camera shutter ready to go whenever you are, you can be certain that you won’t have to wait for minutes until it finally loads.
– Accurate
With Google being one of the leading companies as far as technological advancements are concerned, it’s no wonder that their OCR engine boasts over 98% accuracy. This means that you won’t have to spend valuable time in order to fix spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Combine this and the automatic detection/translation component and you won’t have to wait for more than a few seconds.
– Feature Rich
You’d be hard-pressed to think about any useful feature which isn’t already included. If you wish to scan only a certain part of the image, there’s an option of cropping it beforehand. In case you’re uncertain of the final result’s accuracy, it can be checked side-by-side with the original image. Finally, the outputted text can be exported either in the .PDF or .TXT format.
– Unlimited Access
In the upgraded 2.0.0, you can process OCR with unlimited access by joining the Pro member. Subscribe to our monthly/yearly plan, or just purchase the lifetime plan.
How To Use ScreenOCR
#1 Download the app from the App Store.
#2 Select an existing image from the Gallery by clicking on the “Album” button (1), or snap a photo on the spot (2).
#3 Choose the wanted language in the upper left corner or leave it on AutoDetect for added convenience (1). Then, click the “Scan” button (2).
#4 Once the result is shown on screen, you’re given four different options to choose from:
- Copy (1) – Copies the end result to the clipboard.
- Export (2) – Downloads the text in the form of a .TXT or a .PDF file.
- Translate (3) – Opens up Google Translate for instant conversion.
- Proof (4) – Shows the original image for result comparison.
Languages Supported for OCR and Translation on iOS
ScreenOCR supports more than 50 languages for OCR and 20 languages for translation. Here is the language list below.
OCR Languages
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AutoDetection / Albanian / Arabic / Armenian / Belorussian / Bengali / Bulgarian / Catalan / Chinese / Cloatian / Czech / Danish / Dutch / English / Estonian / Filipino / Finnish / French / German / Greek / Gujarati / Hebrew / Hindi / Hungarian / Icelandic / Indonesian / Italian / Japanese / Kannada / Khmer / Korean / Lao / Latvian / Lithuanian / Macedonian / Malay / Malayalam / Marathi / Nepali / Norwegian / Persian / Polish / Portuguese / Punjabi / Romanian / Russian / Serbian / Russian /Slovak / Slovenian / Spanish / Swedish / Tamil / Telugu / Thai / Turkish / Ukrainian / Vietnamese / Yiddish
Translation Languages
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English / Chinese / Japanese / Korean / French / Spanish / Thai / Arabic / Russian / Portuguese / German / Italian / Greek / Dutch / Polish / Bulgarian / Estonian / Danish / Finnish / Czech / Romanian / Slovenian / Swedish / Hungarian / Vietnamese
Alternative – Text Scanner
Text Scanner is another free OCR app for iOS, mostly advertised as a way to scan typed out text instead of that which has been handwritten. It has the ability to recognize up to 92 languages during scanning, as well as translate to 100 different ones. Text Scanner can work with multiple images at once and organize the scans accordingly inside of a folder. When it’s done converting, a built-in search function can help you find the exact piece of information that you need.
Pros
- + Massive choice of languages
- + Multi-image scan
- + Organizes and sorts scan in ascending or descending order
Cons
- – No built-in camera shutter
- – Fairly inaccurate results with handwritten text
- – Offers only recurring subscription plans – monthly/yearly
Conclusion
Manual rewriting is a thing of the past, and OCR is the future. There are still a lot of unpolished apps out there – by choosing only the best ones, you can maximize your efficiency, save time and ultimately do more. ScreenOCR takes into account both your money and your time while taking as much advantage as possible from the built-in possibilities of iOS. Stop doing things the old-fashioned way and modernize today.