Anyone who follows the history of the blog a bit knows that it is also about document management, paperless offices and tools from time to time. A lot has changed for some people as a result of the topic of working from home.
Standing desks experienced a boom and things in general that can make an office comfortable if you have the space. When it comes to paperless stories, I’ve been a smartphone advocate for ages.
Take a picture of the document and you’re done. But – and I always mention this: a photo is not the same as a document and a “PDF” is not always useful. Because a PDF is only really useful if it is searchable, regardless of the platform.
Apple made it pretty cool because the current systems automatically extract text from images or PDF documents without OCR and make the content searchable. But it is of no use on other platforms. And since I don’t know what will be in x years, I make things that work independently. Just like OCR. There are many possibilities for OCR post-processing and some of them can also be found in our blog.
But now, for the sake of brevity, to the plot. I have presented many apps that apply OCR to your documents. Adobe Scan (Android / iOS) does it, but they now have a stupid subscription model. Readdle’s Scanner Pro (iOS), which is an absolutely fantastic app, also lets you bite into the really sour subscription apple.
QuickScan for iOS is free (and my previous recommendation), but don’t smooth out the edges when shooting at an angle). There are a few apps – but one that OCR upgraded fairly quietly last fall.
Although I’m a changelog reader, this slipped through my fingers. Microsoft Lens! It’s available for Android and iOS. It used to be that Microsoft Lens didn’t do OCR—it just did the text-searching voodoo when you saved the document to OneDrive.
Now I tested around again for my test reports and indeed – OCR is applied to documents that were recorded via Microsoft Lens, even if you don’t save them in OneDrive. So if you are looking for an app for OCR and your documents, take a look at Microsoft Lens. ( Android/iOS ).