In the age where paperless culture is on the rise, how are traditional handwritten and printed documents ever going to compete? It seems a question of not if, but when will we all adopt a completely paperless working and personal life.
This question is nothing new. Leading futurists and technology forecasters have long debated if a fully paperless society is on the horizon or a generation away. However, what is for sure is that the rise of document scanning API OCR bills and receipt scanning apps, not to mention the wealth of online platforms that make that paper trail obsolete, signify that the day will come when we wave goodbye to that pesky paper trail.
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the Holy Grail for advocates of a paperless society. We’ve already seen the benefit of integrating OCR receipt scanning software into commercial enterprise, with more and more businesses adopting the technology all the time. Today, the technology is more advanced than ever making the benefits of businesses using it greater than ever. Streamlining cost management and enhancing the daily processes are just some of the advantages that businesses who adopt the technology enjoy.
But what about image to text conversion? In 2019, which are the most reliable and fluid examples of free OCR tools for image to text conversion? Continue reading below to find out.
Microsoft OneNote
Known as the go-to note keeper in offices across the globe, Microsoft OneNote is also adept at doubling as an OCR tool. Adept for image to text conversion, OneNote’s OCR has one limitation – it’s not brilliant at converting tables and columns.
As far as document scanning API OCR bills goes, there are other apps and online platforms that offer superior functionality – the least of which is Tabscanner – but, for basic image to text transfer, OneNote can be useful.
It’s easy too. All you need to do is to insert an image into OneNote, right-click the image and select copy text from picture. The wait as the text appears before your eyes.
Microsoft Office
Not to be outdone, Microsoft Office also features a document imaging (MODI) equipped with OCR that can recognise printed text and transfer it into an image. Not generally considered the staple text to picture transfer software, Office is limited in that you will need to convert any JPEG files into TIFF format before converting text to images.
Once you’ve got your files in TIFF format, all you need to do is to open the image in TIFF format, select ‘Recognise Text Using OCR’ and click ‘Send to Word.’ You’ll then have an editable Microsoft Word file.
Boxoft Free OCR
A multilingual tool, Boxoft Free OCR is not specifically designed for OCR receipt scanning, but rather to scan and extract text from any image file. Boxoft Free can scan and process paper documents quickly and to a high degree of accuracy.
Not only that, Boxoft’s conversion results are generally considered to be exceptionally good for printing documents once converted. Like comparable image to text conversion programs, it does fall in terms of recognising handwritten notes, however unlike its competitors, Boxoft is adept at identifying a multi-column layout.
FreeOCR to Word
This Windows-exclusive OCR app promises 99.8% OCR accuracy and supports every notable file format, as well as Photoshop files. Given that the app is free and its support functionality, FreeOCR to Word is generally one of the more popular image to text conversion apps.
FreeOCR retains your file’s original formatting with all recognised text being transferred into an editable Microsoft Word file. Not especially effective as a receipt OCR, FreeOCR can help people who just want to convert images into text.
So, there you have it. These are the image to text converters to look out for in 2019. This year, if you’d decided to take charge of your finances, why not try Tabscanner’s receipt scanning app. With the most intuitive API available on the market and flexible pricing plans, we’re confident that once you try the receipt scanning app you’ll wonder how you ever go along without it!
Click the button below to start using Tabscanner’s API for receipt scanning: