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Turn a scan or photo into editable text (OCR)
Recognise text in scans, photos and image-only PDFs.
Can AI help? Yes
OCR is machine learning; modern AI assistants also read handwriting and layouts, with occasional mistakes.
Fastest
G
Google Lens
Point the camera or upload a photo and copy the text
FreeNo account
No account
P
PDF24 Tools
Makes scanned PDFs searchable
FreeNo account
Open source
S
Stirling PDF
OCR on your own machine
Free + paidOpen source
AI
C
ChatGPTAI
Reads photos of documents and handwriting
Free tier + paid
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