OCR on Android: how to get text out of a photo or scan

How to use Google Lens OCR on Android

1. Open the Google app and tap Google Lens in the search bar[1].
2. Under Search with your camera, tap Search, then take a photo or choose one under Screenshots[1].
3. Tap the text, or drag the corners of the region box over it[1].
4. Tap Select text and choose Copy. Listen, Translate and Search are in the same menu[1].

For a photo you already took, open it in Google Photos, tap More, then Google Lens, and tap and select the words you want to copy[4]. Google recommends a clear, well lit image[1].

OCR on a Samsung Galaxy

Circle to Search works on any screen. Hold the Home button, circle or tap the text, then tap Select text and Copy[2]. It runs on select Galaxy phones and tablets with Android 14 and One UI 6.1 or later, and it needs an internet connection[2]. Apps that block screen capture for security or copyright reasons do not support it[2].

AI select, on Galaxy devices with One UI 7.0 or later, does the same from an image or a web page. Open it, select AI select, choose the paragraph and tap the Text icon to get editable text[3].

Scan a paper document on Android

The Google Drive app has a document scanner. Tap Camera, point the phone at the page, adjust the crop, filter and clean up stains, add more pages and save the result as a PDF or JPG in Drive[5]. Google describes the scans as searchable PDFs[5].

A searchable PDF is good for finding a word later. When you need to edit the text, change a table or translate the page, the next step is OCR into a document, below.

Get the text from a photo with the free tool on this page

1. Choose the photo. Open this page in Chrome on your phone and pick a JPG, PNG, WEBP or HEIC photo, a screenshot or a one-page PDF up to 5 MB.
2. Press Get the text. The whole page is read with OCR in a few seconds, with no app to install and no account.
3. Copy or download. Copy the text, or download it as a .txt file or a Word file with tables kept as tables.

Android OCR apps compared

Whole documents into Word from your phone

The camera tools copy what you select. A lease, a school transcript or a handwritten letter is easier as a file. Open the LoreAI app in your phone browser, upload the photos or the scanned PDF, and download one Word file with headings, lists and tables in the order of the original. Handwriting, stamps and seals are read too.

The app can translate the document into one of 105 languages in the same step. Your first document is free, up to 3 pages. For handwriting from the camera, see Google Lens and handwriting, and for translating a photo, the Google Lens alternative.

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