3 Best Methods to Read Text from Images (Top OCR Converters)

If you are a student or a professional, you may come across images and scanned PDF documents with information for different projects. In situations like these, you might need an OCR tool that reads text from images for data extraction. Using such text extraction tools, you can easily manage the research project of your project by saving efforts.

In this article, we will discuss some of the best tools to help you read text from a picture. If you are a researcher trying to extract data from images, continue reading this article to find the best solution for this particular need.

Part 1. How to Read Text from Image with UPDF?

If you are wondering about how to recognize and read text from an image, OCR technology is the answer to your requirement. With the help of text recognition and extraction capabilities of this feature, you can facilitate the information extraction process. Talking about the best OCR software, we highly recommend using UPDF among them.

UPDF, a multi-functional PDF editor, emerges with the option to read text in pictures using its OCR functionality. All you have to do is set the layout, select the language according to the file, and perform OCR. It supports 38 languages for OCR recognition, which makes it the most powerful and accurate choice in the market. Let's discuss the steps to carry out this OCR conversion process in detail.

Step 1: Download UPDF on Your Device

Anyone can read text from a picture with the help of the UPDF. All you need to do is follow these simple steps to recognize, read, and extract text-based information from any images or scanned PDFs:

First and foremost, you need to download UPDF on your device. For this, you can simply click the download button given in this article. After downloading the UPDF setup, install it on your device to begin the process.

Step 2: Drag and Drop the Image on the UPDF Interface

For uploading the image on UPDF, simply drag and drop the image on the UPDF interface to read text from that image.

Alternatively, you can go and click "File > Create > PDF from Image", choose the image you want to read text, and then click "Open" to import it to UPDF.

Step 3: Perform OCR to the Image

Once it is uploaded on UPDF, proceed to click the "Recognize Text Using OCR" icon on the right toolbar. By doing so, you will access the conversion settings pop-up window to perform OCR conversion. 

• On these OCR conversion settings, change the "Layout" settings from three options: "Text and pictures only", "Text over the page image" and "Text under the page image".
• Choose the "Document Language" to read the correct text from the image.
• You can also choose the resolution of the output image within scanned PDFs. Additionally, this tool even allows MCR-based compression of images present in PDFs to avoid loss of quality while converting images for text reading.
• You can even select custom page ranges containing the images to only OCR convert them to read picture text.

Step 4: Extract or Read the Text from the OCR Converted Image

Finally, click the "Perform OCR" button to perform conversion on the images in the PDF. Now, you can open this OCR-converted file again on UPDF and simply copy, edit, and extract the text using the "Edit PDF" feature.

Now that you know about the functionality of UPDF in helping you read text on images, download this tool to ease the research process. It is equally effective for students and research professionals, so anyone can add UPDF to their workflow for data extraction from images.

Part 2. How to Read Text from Images with Adobe Acrobat?

Adobe Acrobat can also help users to read text from pictures with the help of its Scan & OCR feature. It gives you a feature to recognize the text from pictures and scanned PDFs for effective data extraction. Additionally, you can also enhance the scanned PDFs and images with the help of this tool. You can also crop the images from the document using this feature and perform OCR conversion. 

You also have the option to select the language of your document and the type of the output image. Moreover, this tool also allows you to downsample the images to avoid storage issues. Users can also add a custom page range to only OCR convert those pages containing scanned images. The following steps will help you read text from images using Adobe Acrobat.

Step 1. To begin the OCR conversion process, launch Adobe Acrobat on your device and click the "See All Tools" button on the homepage. Hit the "Scan & OCR" feature and upload your scanned PDF containing images using the "Select a File" option. Click on the "Start" button to reach the OCR feature window of this tool.

Step 2. Select the "Recognize Text" drop-down and look for the "In This File" option in the list. In the same window, set the page range and select the document language for optimization.

Step 3. Manage the other conversion settings by selecting the "Gear" icon that is present adjacent to the language settings. Conclusively, hit the "Recognize Text" button for reading the text on images and scanned PDFs.

Part 3. How to Read Text from Images Online?

If you are looking for an online tool to read text on images, Image to Text Converter is a good option for this purpose. It is a free OCR tool that converts scanned images into text within a few seconds. Moreover, users can upload up to 50 images at a time on this online OCR conversion tool. All you need to do is simply upload, paste, or drag and drop the images on the interface of this online tool.

However, there are some image size limitations associated with this online OCR tool. Users can only upload images up to 5 MB file size to read text on pictures. Additionally, you can also face security and stability issues when performing OCR conversion through online tools. Let's see how you can read and extract text using this online image-to-text conversion tool:

Step 1. First, you have to access the Image to Text Converter website on your browser to kick-start the process. Afterward, hit the "Browse" button on the homepage to upload up to 50 images on this online OCR tool.

Step 2. After uploading all the images on the server to this tool, click the "Submit" button to let it do its magic. You have to wait a few seconds while this OCR converter processes your images.

Step 3. Once the image is processed, observe the content of the image in a separate text box. Copy and paste the text or download it as a "TXT" format file for reading the text from the images.

Part 4. Comparing the 3 Methods to Read Text from an Image

After carefully going through all the features offered by these 3 OCR tools, you should be able to choose the tool that fulfills your requirements. However, if you are still confused about the choice, we will help you pick the best option with a detailed comparison table. All you have to do is go through this comparison table to make an informed choice.

All the features compared in this table indicate that UPDF is the best tool to read text from images. As compared to UPDF, Adobe is a pretty expensive tool for personal use. On the other hand, online tools have many limitations, including security concerns, stability issues, and image size restrictions, which makes it unfavorable to read text from pictures.

Part 5. FAQs on How to Read Text from Image

Q1. Can Google Drive read text from images?

Yes, Google Drive can read text from images and scanned PDFs. All you have to do is upload the images on Google Drive. Proceed to right-click on the uploaded image and select the "Google Docs" option from the "Open With" drop-down menu. Once the file is opened on Google Docs, you can easily extract or read picture text.

However, with this method, all the original formatting and layout will be destroyed. If you care about the layout, you need to go to a professional OCR software like UPDF.

Q2. What app can read the text in an image?

UPDF is the best PDF editing application to help you read image text with its OCR tool. You only need to import your images into this OCR tool and recognize the text by performing OCR. After completing the OCR conversion, you can easily read, copy, or extract information from the images.

Q3. Is there a free solution to read image text?

There is an option to read text from images free of cost with the help of online OCR tools. However, you will face stability and security concerns while performing this operation on these tools. So, we will recommend you purchase offline OCR tools like UPDF to get 100% accurate conversions. The best news is that this tool is now offering a grand offer to its users and grab the discount now before it expires.

Final Words

Throughout the article, we have discussed the best tool to read text from images. However, with its multi-functionality and cost-effective rates, UPDF emerges as the best choice to perform OCR conversions. Download UPDF now to add this effective text extraction tool to your workflow while researching different topics for your projects.