Do you have a handwritten document that you wish to convert to text or MS Word without actually retyping it? This is possible with the use of best OCR software programs. OCR, which stands for Optical Character Recognition, converts scanned images of documents to editable text formats.
Below are our top 10 best OCR software you might want to consider:
10. Evernote
Many people use Evernote because it has features for organizing your daily schedule as well as a useful feature for taking down notes. But many users are not fully aware of its OCR capability. This feature allows your saved images that contain recognizable words to be indexed so that you could easily search for them when needed. This will make it easy for you to get a snapshot of any document and search for the content thereof later on. This program is free to download.
9. Boxoft
Another free software that made it to our top ten best OCR software is the Boxoft. It has a user-friendly interface that can analyze images containing multiple column texts. It also supports English, German, French Spanish, Dutch and other major languages. This OCR program also allows you to scan documents then save them into editable text documents or zip files.
8. ABBYY FineReader
The ABBYY FineReader OCR is a software with features that can help you turn your scanned documents, digital images and PDF files into editable and searchable formats. It boasts of accurate conversion capabilities to eliminate reformatting or retyping of documents. It is also an easy-to-use program that supports 189 languages for text recognition. You could visit their website for pricing.
7. TopOCR
TopOCR is a free software application that is especially designed for digital cameras, mobile phones and scanners. Another one of our best OCR software, this program has two window interfaces composed of the source image window and the Text window showing the converted image. It works like WordPad that is searchable and editable. This program can recognize images in JPEG, BMP, GIF and TIFF formats. It supports English and ten more other languages.
6. Neuroph OCR
Another of our best OCR software is Neuroph OCR which is the only open-source software in the list. This program makes use of its artificial neural network for handwriting recognition. It then converts handwritten files for MS Word, Wordpad, or Notepad. It is still in the development stage which can explain why its features are still limited.
5. SimpleOCR
SimpleOCR is a program that is free to download and use for a limited time. However, you could also purchase its full-featured premium version. This software has handwriting recognition capabilities which you could set up to directly read from a scanner or from a scanned file in TIFF, BMP or JPEG format. One of its notable features is its built-in spelling checker which allows you to correct errors in the converted text. Files can be converted into basic text or MS Word format.
4. FreeOCR
For multi-image or multi-page TIFF or PDF files that you want to convert to basic text format, you could use FreeOCR. This user-friendly program can recognize text directly from Twain scanners. It uses a double window which displays the original document and the converted document. It can then export your files into MS Word format.
3. Captricity
Captricity is a premium OCR program that is popularly used in offices and business. It can convert PDF, efax, fax, handwritten and other types of static document into any editable text format you want. One of the best features of this program is its cloud-based storage system so you could access your files from any computer. You could use this software for free for up to ten pages converted. Premium editions start at $75 per month.
At $149.99, this OCR program seems to be overpriced. But its cost also comes with powerful and intuitive features. It is simple to use and claims to be very accurate with its conversion. It can even transform handwritten documents and images into editable formats that look like the original even with its formatting including columns, bullets, graphics and tables used.
Microsoft OneNote is premium software that is popularly called as “Copy Text from Picture” because of how it works. To convert images to an editable format, you just have to drag or copy them to Microsoft OneNote. Once the image is already inserted, you could right-click on that image and then choose “Copy Text from Picture.” It will then generate the text from the image and paste it to Notepad or a Microsoft Word document.
The best OCR software programs mentioned above are just some of the applications that you could use to convert text images and handwritten documents into editable formats. If you know of other OCR programs that you think is more powerful or capable than those listed here, please let us know.
December 21, 2014 4:34 pm
I like GT Text for its accuracy and its free. It has scanner, paste image, and lots of languages. You can select the part of the image and moves the text to clipboard.
softocr.com
October 27, 2015 5:48 am
All OCR software you suggest are great! I like Docs Matter best. I am using all the time. Docs Matter is a mobile scanner. Its main feature is to scan the document you have, and use the built-in OCR engine to retrieve text from document after scanning.
I also use Yunmai Document Recognition which is for PC. It helps me a lot with my paper documents.
April 8, 2016 5:43 am
The top 10 best OCR software you mentioned are helpful for me. 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. This software is a demo of Yunmai Document Recognition OCR SDK.