Free OCR Tool – Google Drive and Google Docs
The free OCR tool by Google combines features of Google Drive and Google Docs free tools. If you’ve ever had to manually input data from a physical document, email, or scanned contract into a program or database, you know it can be tedious and error-prone. But there’s a solution that can simplify this task: Google Drive’s OCR feature. This free OCR tool uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to identify and convert image text into editable digital text.
Affiliate: Experience limitless no-code automation, streamline your workflows, and effortlessly transfer data between apps with Make.com.
Understanding Google Drive’s OCR
OCR is a technology that assists users with data extraction. It converts the text from an image or a scanned document into a format that a computer can read. Google Drive’s OCR is a free tool that allows you to convert images to text. The process is simple: upload the image you need data from into Google Docs, and export the data as a text format to your computer.
How to Use Google Drive’s Free OCR Tool
1. Go to your Google Drive
2. Drag and drop it anywhere you want in the Drive
Or Right Click on the Drive => Upload Files
As of this writing, Google Drive supports .jpg, .png, .gif extensions, and PDF files with a maximum size of 2 MB.
4. Right Click the file you uploaded => Open with => Google Docs
A new tab will open Google Docs with your picture and the text of your transcoded content. You can delete your image and edit the document as you like. The system will automatically create the file next to your image location. Then you can download it to your device and edit it with your program of choice. The workflow may not be ideal for a free OCR tool, but it is functional.
In Google Docs, you can go to => File => Download as => Choose the type you want to download the file.
You can download it as Plain Text (*.txt) and then Convert / Copy – Paste it to any other application/format you’re used to.
Or, in Google Drive, you can Right Click the document => Download => it will be saved as “*.docs.”
Limitations of Google Drive’s OCR
While Google Drive’s OCR is a powerful free OCR tool, it does have some limitations:
Google Docs OCR may struggle with randomly formatted content and differentiate sizes or types of fonts, which can require additional formatting adjustments.
Google’s OCR works best with standard fonts like Arial or Times New Roman. It may not process complex fonts or handwriting well.
The file you upload should not exceed 2MB.
Google Docs OCR does not support uploading multiple documents simultaneously.
Despite these limitations, Google Drive’s OCR is a valuable tool for data extraction and image-to-text conversion.