Top 8 Easy-to-Navigate OCR Text Recognition Apps for Mobile

Posted: June 29, 2023

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Do you have images from which you want to extract the text or other characters? OCR apps can do this for you. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that automates text extraction from images. In this article, we will discuss the best OCR-based applications for mobile that quickly make text extraction at little to no cost.

Why Use OCR Apps?

OCR scanning and recognition applications for mobile are mainly used for extracting text from documents, business cards, scanned documents, and more. You can scan and extract text from business or paper visiting cards for free using a business card scanner app with OCR.

Let’s explore other mobile applications in the category.

Google Keep

Google Keep is a cloud-based note-storing application. It is a well-known competitor of Evernote and OneNote. What’s good about this app is that it is updated regularly. Aside from note-keeping, this OCR app captures text from images. The OCR-based application is available for both iOS & Android devices; it is a 100% free and ads-free app that’s similar to OCRnote.

Text Fairy

Text Fairy OCR application is available to Android users who need to perform text extraction. Text Fairy is the best option if you need to frequently use an OCR application. The most appealing thing is that this application not only extracts text from images but also corrects the viewpoint from where the image is captured.

This OCR app for mobile allows you to copy text to a clipboard and paste it to another application. Also, you can encounter the option to export the extracted text as a PDF document without any hassle.

CamScanner

CamScanner is a well-known business card scanner OCR-dependent application available for Android and iOS devices. This app can digitize any document in a single go. The best part is that the document scanning feature of this OCR app is available in its free version. But to enjoy the full OCR features, you should go for its pro version.

The pro plan offers other valuable features along with those of the free version. It is packed with the handy option for digitizing business cards and extracting text from images and scanned documents. You can even fetch different conversion options, including text to image, image to doc, or image to Excel.

Office Lens

When it comes to productivity applications, Microsoft is king. It’s Office Lens app is a business card scanning application with OCR capabilities. It can swiftly transform your paper visiting cards into digital files. The only downside is that it works seamlessly with the Office 365 Suite but not so much with third-party applications.

So, if you already use 365 Office, Office Lens is the perfect option. Remember that this OCR app for iOS and Android works with all formats, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Note, and more.

Adobe Scan

Adobe Scan is referred to as a one-stop OCR solution that is available on both iOS and Android devices. If you are seeking a document management app, Adobe is a great option. It is an application that lets you do everything in seconds. It scans but can also be used for editing, annotating, and commenting.

The most appealing part of this app is that it is free and provides 5GB of cloud-dependent storage for scanned documents. The only downside about this OCR app is that it is not compatible with other storage apps. This means the user depends entirely on the 5GB of storage or needs to buy more from the vendor. It also

Smart Lens

This full-fledged OCR app assists in scanning any document and transforming images into text format. It also translates scanned text into any other language. Just feed the system with the image you want to be processed and let the app do the rest.

For Android users seeking a language translator OCR application, Smart Lens can be the perfect option.

Text Scanner

If you’re in the market for an OCR application that supports handwriting recognition, then Text Scanner is your best option. This application supports business card scanner functions and is available for Android.

The downside is that its free trial version is packed with tons of ads. If you want to get rid of them, you must make an in-app purchase.

OCR Quickly (Text Scanner)

OCR Quickly is indicated as a super-fast utility for making OCR scanning. It has an OOTB feature, which means you do not need to register or log in; just install and start using it. You can use the images from your phone’s gallery to detect text. It uses the official Tesseract OCR engine, an open-source engine developed by Google, and has an Android version.

It has an offline mode so you can work without Internet access. This application makes text extraction easy and sharpens the image a bit before proceeding with extraction. You can even enable more precise text recognition options with this feature.