Unleash The Power Of Google Drive: Learn How To Convert Images To Text OCR In Seconds!
In today’s world, Google Drive has become an essential application for both personal and professional use. With the help of Google Drive, you can store, share and access your files from any device with an internet connection.
But did you know that Google Drive also has a powerful feature that can convert images to text? Yes, it’s called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which allows Google Drive to recognize text from an image and convert it into editable text.
In this article, we will discuss how to unleash the power of Google Drive and convert images to text using OCR technology.
What is OCR?
OCR is a technology that allows a computer to read and understand human-readable text from scanned images, photos, and PDFs. OCR technology works by identifying individual characters in an image and converting them into machine-readable text.
OCR technology has numerous applications, such as document scanning, data entry, invoice processing, and more.
Why Convert Images to Text?
Converting images to text using OCR has many benefits, such as:
Editable text: When you convert an image to text, you can edit the text just like you would with any other document. This makes it easy to make changes or corrections to your text.
Improved searchability: Text documents are more easily searchable than images. By converting an image to text, you can search for words or phrases within the document.
Accessibility: Converting an image to text makes it accessible to people who use screen readers or other assistive technologies.
How to Convert Images to Text Using Google Drive?
Google Drive’s OCR technology makes it easy to convert images to text. Here are the steps to follow:
Open your Google Drive account and upload an image that you want to convert to text.
Right-click on the image and select “Open with” and then “Google Docs.”
Google Drive will now convert the image to text and create a new Google Docs document. You will see the text version of your image on the screen.
You can now edit the text, format it, and save it as a new document.
If the conversion didn’t work correctly, you can use the “Select all” option and manually correct any errors. Remember, OCR technology isn’t perfect, and some errors are to be expected.
Conclusion
Converting images to text using OCR technology is an excellent way to make your documents more accessible and searchable. By using Google Drive’s OCR technology, you can now convert images to text in seconds.
With this new skill, you can improve your productivity and the accuracy of your documents. Give it a try and see how it can transform the way you work!
Let’s say you have a scanned copy of your textbook in image format and you want to convert them into text where you can edit it in your text editor, what is your best solution? Using an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software is your best bet. However, most OCR software doesn’t come cheap, and paying the hefty price just for a single usage may be too much for us to bear. Luckily, if you are a Google Drive user, you can now make use of its OCR technology to convert images to text for free.
To get started, you need to make sure that your images contain text that can be converted to a word document. It can be in the jpg or png format. A PDF file will work fine too. Next, you must also have a Google Drive account (your Google Drive account is the same as your Google account).
Go to Google Drive (https://drive.google.com/) in your browser. Make sure you are logged in.
Click the “cog” button on the right. Under “Upload Settings” select the option “Convert text from uploaded PDF and image files.”
Next, click the “Upload” button and upload your image/PDF files. In this case, I uploaded a scree capture of one of our articles (in png format).
Once the uploading is completed, Google Drive will process in the background to convert the images into a text file. Once done, you should see the converted file in your Drive.
Click to open the converted file, and you should find a copy of the image file and the associated text in the document.
Do note that depending on the image resolution, text font and other factors, the text conversion might not be one-hundred percent accurate and the formatting might not be aligned. In most cases, you should be able to get a big chunk of text correctly converted from the image file. Also, do note that you can only upload a file sized 2MB and below, and only the first ten pages of a PDF file will get converted. If you have a PDF file with tons of pages, do split it into several files before uploading.
Once converted, you have an option to edit it in Google Drive, or download it in your preferred format and edit in your computer with your favorite text editor.
Don’t forget to uncheck the “Convert text from uploaded PDF and image files” option to avoid any future uploads to be converted to text format.
Try it out and let us know if this works for you.
Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.
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