In the age of information, extracting text from images is a necessity for many professionals and students alike. Whether you’re trying to digitize notes from a photo, reinterpret a scanned document into editable text, or input data from an infographic into your computer, there are multiple methods available to accomplish this task. Here are seven ways you can extract text from an image:

1.OCR Software

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software is specifically designed to convert different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents or PDF files with images, into editable and searchable data. Examples include Adobe Acrobat, Tesseract, ABBYY FineReader, and others that offer powerful OCR capabilities.

2.Online OCR Services

If you don’t want to download software, online OCR services like OnlineOCR.net or FreeOCR.com provide a quick and often free method of extracting text from images. These services generally require you to upload your image file and then process it to provide the extracted text.

3.Smartphone Apps

There are numerous smartphone apps that utilize the camera function to scan texts and extract information. Popular ones include Google Keep’s OCR feature, Microsoft Office Lens, and Text Scanner [OCR], which can be very handy for on-the-go scanning.

4.Built-in Computer Tools

Many computers come with native tools that can capture text from images. For example, Microsoft OneNote has a built-in OCR feature that lets users copy text from a captured image directly into their notes.

5.Browser Extensions

Browser extensions such as Project Naptha for Chrome allow users to highlight and copy text directly from images seen on the web. They are convenient when dealing with online materials.

6.Command-line Tools

For those comfortable with command lines, tools like Tesseract can be used through terminal commands to automate OCR processes for batch conversions of multiple files.

7.Manual Transcription Services

When accuracy is critical and the image contains complex formatting or very poor image quality that automated tools can’t handle well, manual transcription services might be the best option. This involves hiring individuals or services to manually transcribe the text seen in an image.

Regardless of your needs or tech proficiency, there’s a method suited for every scenario when it comes to extracting text from images. From sophisticated software to simple apps on your phone, extracting data has never been more accessible.