Our selection reviewed a list of the most popular text scanning programs. An important factor for programs in this category is the ability to decipher the text of documents, as well as the quality of scanning - it is necessary that the information is completely readable, and the image scanner clearly transfers every line of the picture into the document.
Some applications have a Russian-language design, which can be another significant factor when choosing the best scanning program. So let's take another quick look at the programs below that can properly recognize text and scan a document into a file:
The ABBYY FineReader 10 Home computer program is one of the most common tools for scanning documents. Knows how to quickly and efficiently find blocks and translate text written in different languages. The advantage of ABBYY FineReader is the presence of an impressive language base. Don't forget about the availability of a Professional version with advanced features.
OCR CuneiForm stands out among its competitors with good grabbing performance for photographed text. It is noteworthy that a photograph can be taken even with a 2MP camera of any rather outdated mobile device. The program boasts a dictionary checking function, which guarantees a high degree of information quality of the finished material.
Scanitto Pro will do an excellent job with more specific work. The application will recognize the text very quickly and will be able to save it in the required document format. It is noteworthy that the program can find a given area of paper and improve the appearance of the material before saving it to the storage medium. There is a function for scanning with one click of a key.
VueScan has a strong database of comparable scanner devices. Among analogues, the program demonstrates the highest connection speed to the scanner. Among the additional pleasant options, it is worth noting the convenience of manually adjusting color rendering.
When choosing free document scanning programs, you should pay attention to PaperScan Free. The utility is quite simple in terms of functionality, on the other hand, it performs all the necessary scanning options, in addition, you will be pleased with the unique compression technology, which can significantly reduce the file size, leaving the original display quality. If you like the Free version, you can always purchase the extended Professional modification with more impressive functionality.
RiDoc is another fairly powerful scanning tool. It is worth noting that Ridoc includes a specialized tool for reducing file sizes without noticeably degrading the display appearance. The information remains readable. If necessary, the RiDoc document scanner will help you export document formats to graphic extensions. The program can install watermarks on finished material and send the document by mail.
Download a free program for quickly and easily scanning documents. Thanks to its functionality, it will allow you to easily scan documents and compete with paid products.
If you work as a secretary, accountant, or simply, your work involves frequent scanning documents, then you need the right and fast tool that would help you easily perform monotonous manipulations. Such a tool could be PaperScanby companies ORPALIS.
Description of the ParepScan program
The application interface does not raise any questions. Everything is easy to understand and intuitive. The top part contains control panel icons, and the right part contains icons of the visual graphic editor. The main part is occupied by the block in which the scanned document is placed.
To scan to ParepScan there is a support system for almost all scanner manufacturers, as well as multifunctional devices (MFP). Support includes devices that operate on protocols (or interfaces) TWAIN And WIA.
For document scanning you need to click on the “add” button, having first turned on the scanner or MFP. After which, a window for selecting parameters will appear. In this window you are given the opportunity to set settings for the current document. For example: sizes, choose color or black and white scan of document, choose quality, with which you want to scan the document. The choice of quality depends on the capabilities of your scanner and its resolution. The higher the resolution, the higher the quality, size and weight of the resulting file.
Once you have received the scanned file, it is loaded into the program interface window, where you can edit it to save it. The first step is to cut off excess parts that are not needed, such as white parts of pages, or an area that was not used in the scanner. Then, you have access to a panel for graphically editing the file. With its help, you can insert inscriptions, images, a stamp onto the resulting file, draw by hand, draw lines, shapes, paint over them, etc. That is, a complete set, following the example of Paint. You can also apply filters, change and adjust white balance, brightness, contrast, color balance, and so on to make the document as high-quality and readable as possible.
Once you're done editing, you can save the file as an image. Download ParepScan for free To scan documents you can follow the link below With official website. Also, ParepScan It also has paid versions, which differ only in a larger set of functions, most of which are not useful to you in everyday use of the program.
OCR software allows you to convert photographed or scanned documents directly into sentences.
The fact is that the text in the image is presented in the form of a raster, a set of dots. The mentioned software converts a set of dots into full-fledged text, available for editing and saving.
Letter recognition is designed to optimize the process of digitizing printed or handwritten books and documents.
This digitization method is orders of magnitude faster than the speed of manual typing from an image. Widely used in the digitization of libraries and archives. Next, we will consider the five best representatives of the family of similar programs.
ABBYY FineReader 10
FineReader is the undisputed leader among all programs that recognize text in images. In particular, there is no software that processes the Cyrillic alphabet more clearly. In general, FineReader has 179 languages, the text in which is recognized extremely successfully.
The only thing that may disappoint users is that the program is paid. Only a 15-day trial version is available for free. During this period, scanning of 50 pages is allowed.
You will then have to pay to use the program. FineReader easily “eats” any image of more or less high quality. The source is completely unimportant. Be it a photograph, a scan of a page or any picture with letters.
Advantages:
- accurate recognition;
- a huge number of reading languages;
- tolerance to the quality of the source image.
Flaw:
- trial version for 15 days.
OCR CuneiForm
Free program for reading text information from images. The recognition accuracy is an order of magnitude lower than that of the previous program under consideration. But for a free utility, the functionality is still excellent.
Interesting! CuneiForm recognizes blocks of text, graphics, and even various tables. Moreover, even unlined tables can be read.
To ensure accuracy, special dictionaries are connected to the recognition process, which replenish the vocabulary from scanned documents.
Advantages:
- free distribution;
- using dictionaries to check the correctness of the text;
- scanning text from poor quality photocopies.
Flaws:
- relatively low accuracy;
- small number of languages supported.
WinScan2PDF
This is not even a full-fledged program, but a utility. No installation is required, and the executable file weighs only a few kilobytes. The recognition process is extremely fast, although the resulting documents are saved exclusively in PDF format.
In fact, the entire process is performed by pressing three buttons: selecting the source, destination and, in fact, launching the program.
The utility is designed for fast batch processing of many files. For the convenience of users, a large interface language package is provided.
Advantages:
- portability;
- fast work;
- ease of use.
Flaws:
- minimum size;
- the only output file format.
SimpleOCR
An excellent small program for recognizing texts from images. It even supports reading manuscripts. The trouble is that Russian is not included in the interface language pack or in the list of languages supported for recognition.
However, if you need to scan English, Danish or French, then you won't find a better free option.
In its scope, the program provides accurate font decoding, noise removal and graphic image extraction. In addition, the program interface has a built-in text editor, almost identical to WordPad, which significantly increases the usability of the program.
Advantages:
- accurate text recognition;
- convenient text editor;
- removing noise from an image.
Flaws:
- complete absence of Russian language.
Freemore OCR
The program allows you to quickly extract text and graphics from images. The software supports working with multiple scanners without loss of performance. The extracted text can be saved in a text document or MS Office document format.
In addition, a multi-page recognition function is provided.
Freemore OCR is distributed free of charge, however, the interface is only in English. But this circumstance does not in any way affect the ease of use, because the controls are organized in an intuitive way.
Advantages:
- free distribution;
- ability to work with multiple scanners;
- recognition accuracy is decent.
Flaws
- Lack of Russian language in the interface;
- The need to download the Russian language package for recognition.
Probably everyone is familiar with the situation when a scan of a document, for example, a page of a book, needs to be converted into printed text. There are special programs for this, but most of them are known to very few people. Probably everyone knows only ABBYY FineReader. Indeed, FineReader is beyond competition. This is the best program for scanning and text recognition in Russian, but it is available exclusively in paid versions and is very expensive. How many people are willing to pay almost 7,000 rubles for the most budget license if they plan to process one or two books a year?
If you consider the purchase of an expensive commercial product unjustified, why not use analogues, some of which are free? Yes, they are not so rich in functions, but they cope quite successfully with many tasks that many believe only FineReader can handle. So let's take a look at some of the available alternatives. And at the same time let’s see how they differ from the generally accepted standard.
To compare other programs with ABBYY FineReader, let's find out why it is so good. Here is a list of its main functions:
- Working with photographs, scans and paper documents.
- Editing the contents of pdf files - text, individual blocks, interactive elements, etc.
- Convert pdf to Microsoft Word format and vice versa. Create pdf files from any text documents.
- Compare the content of documents in 35 languages, for example, scanned paper and electronic (not in all editions).
- Recognition and conversion of scanned texts, tables, mathematical formulas.
- Automatic execution of routine operations (not in all editions).
- Supports 192 national alphabets.
- Spell checking of recognized text in Russian, Ukrainian and 46 other languages.
- Supports 10 graphic and 10 text input file formats, not including pdf.
- Saving files in graphic and text formats, as well as in the form of EPUB and FB2 electronic books.
- Reading barcodes.
- Interface in 20 languages, including Russian and Ukrainian.
- Supports most existing scanner models.
The program's capabilities are excellent, but for home users who do not process documents on an industrial scale, they are redundant. However, for those who need to recognize only a few pages, ABBYY provides services for free - through the FineReaderOnline web service. After registration, you can process 10 pages of scanned or photographed text, and then 5 pages per month. More - for an additional fee.
The cost of the most inexpensive FineReader license for installation on a computer is 6,990 rubles (Standard version).
A tiny and extremely simple free utility, of course, is not able to compete with the monster, but it solves the main task - recognizing scanned text - as expected. Moreover, for this it does not even require installation on a PC (portable). And it is controlled by only three buttons.
To recognize text using WinScan2PDF, click “Select source” and specify the connected scanner (the program, unfortunately, does not work with ready-made files). Place the document in the scanner and click Scan. If you want to cancel the operation, click Cancel. That's all the instructions.
The utility supports 23 languages, including Russian, and works with multi-page files. The finished result is saved in pdf format, a scan of the document is saved in jpg.
Web service Free-OCR.com
Free-OCR.com (OCR - Optical character recognition) is a free Internet service for recognizing scanned or photographed texts saved in graphic image format (jpg, gif, tiff, bmp) or pdf. Supports 29 languages, including Russian and Ukrainian, and the user can select not one, but several, if the source text contains them.
Free-OCR does not require registration and does not have any restrictions on the number of uploaded documents. Only the file size is limited - up to 6 Mb. The service does not process multi-page documents; more precisely, it ignores everything except the first sheet.
The scanned text recognition speed is quite high. An A4 sheet with a fragment of a book in Russian was processed in about 5 seconds, but the quality was not satisfactory. It recognizes large fonts - like in children's books - 100%, and medium and small fonts - about 80%. With English-language documents, things are somewhat better - small and low-contrast font was recognized correctly by about 95%.
Free Online OCR web service
- another free web service, very similar to the previous one, but with expanded functionality. He:
- Supports 106 languages.
- Processes multi-page documents, including those in multiple languages.
- Recognizes texts on scans and photo documents of many types. In addition to 10 graphic image formats, it processes pdf, djvu, doxc, odt documents, zip archives and compressed Unix files.
- Saves output files in one of 3 formats: txt, doc and pdf.
- Supports recognition of mathematical equations.
- Allows you to rotate the image 90-180° in both directions.
- Correctly recognizes text in multiple columns on one page.
- Can recognize one selected fragment.
- After processing, it offers to copy the file to the clipboard, download it to your computer, upload it to Google Docs, or publish it on the Internet. You can also immediately translate text into another language using Google Translate or Bing Translator.
We must give Free Online OCR credit for the fact that it reads low-resolution and low-contrast images quite well. The result of recognizing all Russian-language texts fed to him was 100% or close to it.
Free Online OCR is, in our opinion, one of the best FineReader alternatives, but it only processes 20 pages for free (though it doesn't say for what period). Further use of the service costs from $0.5 per page.
Microsoft OneNote
The note-taking program Microsoft OneNote, excluding the very old and latest version 17, also contains OCR functionality. It is not as advanced as in specialized applications, but still suitable for use if there are no other options.
To recognize text from an image using OneNote, insert the picture into the file (“Picture” - “Insert”), right-click on it and select “Copy text from picture”.
After that, paste the copied text anywhere in the note.
By default, the recognition language is set to English. If you need Russian or any other, change the setting manually.
The quality of Russian text recognition in Microsoft OneNote leaves much to be desired, so it cannot be called a full replacement for FineReader. And processing large multi-page documents in it is very inconvenient.
SimpleOCR
The old free program SimpleOCR is also a very worthy tool for recognizing texts from electronic images and scans, but, unfortunately, without support for the Russian language. But it has a unique function for reading handwritten words, as well as an editor that allows you to correct errors before saving the finished result.
Other SimpleOCR features:
- Spell checking with the ability to update the dictionary manually.
- Reading documents in low resolution and with marks (there is an option to clear “noise”).
- The closest possible selection of fonts and the transfer of writing styles (bold, italics). If desired, the function can be disabled.
- Simultaneous processing of several sheets or a separate fragment.
- Highlighting possible errors in the finished text for manual editing.
- Supports many modifications of scanners.
- Input formats of electronic documents: tif, jpg, bmp, ink, as well as scans.
- Saving finished text in txt and doc formats.
The recognition quality of both printed texts and manuscripts is quite high.
The program could be called universal if not for the limited language support. The latest version only supports English, French and Danish; there are likely no plans to add others. The interface is entirely in English, but is easy to understand. In addition, in the main window there is a “Demo” button, which launches a training video on working with SimpleOCR.
The program of the Belgian development company I.R.I.S is truly a real competitor to the Russian ABBYY FineReader. Powerful, fast, cross-platform, based on the proprietary OCR engine used by Adobe, HP and Canon, it perfectly recognizes even the most difficult to read texts. Supports 137 languages, including Russian and Ukrainian.
Features and functions of Readiris:
- The highest file processing speed among applications of this class, designed for large volumes.
- Preserving the formatting of the source text (fonts, size, writing style).
- Single and batch file processing, support for multi-page documents.
- Recognition of mathematical equations, special characters and barcodes.
- Clearing text from “noise” - lines, blots, etc.
- Integration with various cloud services - Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox, SharePoint and some others.
- Supports all modern scanner models.
- Input data formats: pdf, djvu, jpg, png and others, in which graphic images are saved, as well as those received directly from the scanner.
- Output formats: doc, docx, xls, xlsx, txt, rtf, html, csv, pdf. Conversion to djvu is supported.
The program interface is Russian-language, use is intuitive. It does not provide users with the ability to edit the contents of pdf files, like FineReader, but, in our opinion, it copes with the main task - text recognition.
Readiris comes in two paid versions. The cost of the Pro license is 99.00€, Corporate - 199€. Almost like ABBYY.
Freemore OCR
Freemore OCR - (! program website http://freemoresoft.com/freeocr/index.php may be blocked by antiviruses due to advertising “garbage” built into the installer) - another simple, compact and free utility that also recognizes texts well, but by default only in English. Other language packages must be downloaded and installed separately.
Other features and capabilities of Freemore OCR:
- Simultaneous work with several scanners.
- Supports many graphic data formats, including proprietary ones like psd (Adobe Photoshop file). All standard graphics formats are supported.
- PDF support.
- Saving the finished result in pdf, txt or docx format, and to export text to Word, just click one button on the toolbar.
- Built-in editor (unfortunately, the program does not save the formatting of the source document).
- View document properties.
- Print recognized text directly from the main window.
- Password protection of pdf files.
At first glance, the program's interface may seem complicated, but in fact it is very easy to use. Tools are divided into groups, similar to the Microsoft Office ribbon. If you look at them more closely, the purpose of this or that button will quickly become clear.
To load an electronic document into the Freemore OCR window, first select its type - image or pdf file, and then click the corresponding “Load” button. To start the recognition process, click on the “OCR” button in the group of tools of the same name next to the image of the magic wand (shown in the screenshot).
The result of scanning English texts from both well-readable and hard-to-read images turned out to be quite satisfactory. The only thing I didn’t like was that along with the program, all sorts of garbage is installed on the computer - some fake anti-virus scanners, optimizers and other unnecessary things, and without the ability to refuse them during installation. In a word, if not for this drawback, the application could be recommended as a good free alternative to FineReader.
By purchasing a scanner or multifunctional device, a person receives not only a working tool capable of performing certain functions, but also a set of software products. They are usually supplied on an optical disc or downloaded from the Internet when registering the equipment on the manufacturer’s website. A scanning program is included with each scanner. But its functions are sometimes not enough and then third-party solutions are sought.
Advantages of individual utilities
Standard software for devices capable of scanning a document or image has, in most cases, a modest set of actions that can be performed with the resulting file. Trimming, minor adjustment, rotation 90 degrees. In addition, a typical software package from the manufacturer includes a dozen functions that the person who bought the device will never use.
At the same time, third-party solutions can do much more, perform their tasks better and may not cost anything. Their main advantages:
Standard programs for scanning documents can be used only at first, until a more functional tool is found for working with already received images or creating new ones according to given parameters.
Popular scanning programs
Among the entire galaxy of utilities available for download and installation, you can easily get confused and have difficulty choosing. In order for the program to satisfy the user as much as possible and be suitable for the tasks that he needs to perform, you must first know the most popular representatives. They are:
A brief overview of some of them cannot satisfy all the questions that a potential user may have, and therefore it is necessary to talk about them in more detail.
ABBYY FineReader
It is very expensive - for the basic version on the official website they ask for 7 thousand rubles. If you buy a license for one year, you will have to pay 3200. A complete package, equipped with automation functions and comparison of scanned fragments from several sources, costs as much as 39 thousand and a little more than half as much if you take it for a year.
The main features of the basic version are:
There were some shortcomings. Even in the most recent version of the program, they still haven’t added a decent way to read formulas correctly. The problem with hieroglyphic languages has not been completely solved. It’s bad, but compared to previous versions it’s much better; tables are processed without dedicated cell border markings. Overall, this is a good program for quickly scanning documents, especially when creating e-books. But its high price and the problems mentioned above force users to look for simpler analogues online.
Free ScanLite
Communicates with the printer directly through the driver, bypassing its utility software and add-ons. It has a single-window interface that contains all the features. The scanning process is divided into several logical stages:
- Select the name under which the document will be saved.
- The path is indicated where it can be found after the process is completed.
- The “Scan” button is pressed.
During the process, you can observe how the document is formed as it passes over the paper version of the reading head. After everything is completed, before saving it is possible to adjust the brightness and contrast, make the resulting drawing monochrome and set the quality in which it will be transferred to the file. There are only two saving options - PDF and JPG.
Domestic application ScanCorrector
A fairly simple program for scanning documents. Stores the history of processed files (up to the last ten), allows you to correct color and saturation in both manual and automatic modes. In the latter case, the choice is made from the built-in preset that suits best.
Currently not updated and therefore may have some problems. For example, compatibility with new operating systems. In addition, it is also impossible to download it from official servers, and therefore you will have to spend some time searching for the installer on torrents or specialized sites dedicated to software.
CuneiForm scanner
One of the freely distributed programs that can compete with the quality of tasks performed by expensive products. It has built-in text recognition mechanisms, including through online dictionaries. Offers a combination of two functions:
You can download the free scanning program on the official website of the developer - the OpenOCR company. It is completely undemanding in terms of hardware and works even on old computers at good speed.
Websites and mobile applications with OCR
In addition to various programs, in the age of development of high-speed Internet, services have appeared that allow you not to waste time purchasing, downloading and installing specialized programs. All the power of the desktop versions of some tools is now available simply in the browser.
A few popular sites:
There are several mobile applications for each OS. They differ both in the set of capabilities and in the way they export and save the finished result.
The unpopular Windows Mobile, which according to recent estimates is used by less than 1 percent of all mobile device users, has one of the most interesting virtual scanning programs - Office Lens. It allows you to automatically align a text document photographed with a smartphone camera, trim unnecessary fields and recognize text. There is the possibility of multi-page export to PDF and OneNote, where you can add handwritten notes or text comments.
The application is available on two other operating systems, like any other product from Microsoft. Unlike Google, this corporation follows a more open and honest policy towards competitors.
CamScanner is an Android application that can provide almost identical recognition quality compared to large PC products. It has the ability to set the shooting quality, automatically aligns and crops. Supports multi-language scanning.
On iOS there is a mobile version of FineReader - ABBYY FineScanner. However, you have to pay for the OCR function - a premium account costs one and a half thousand rubles. Recognition works via a web connection, as does the variation with the website. Supports 44 languages and many output file formats.
Another option, Evernote Scannable, is completely free, has integration with Apple's cloud storage, and has the ability to import contacts from photographed business cards. There is a native exchange with a note-taking application from the same company.
