There may be times when you need to extract text from images, a scanned document, or even a PDF document. You may have found yourself googling for software solutions that enabled you do extract text from documents, with the result that you have ended up spending way too much of time time trying to figure out which one will work best for you. Did you know that Google Docs provides a super quick simple solution to the whole problem? In this tutorial, let’s take a look at how you can convert text from a scanned document using Google Docs.
How to Convert Text from a Scanned Document using Google Docs
1. Login to Google Docs using your Gmail credentials.
2. In the left navigation pane, click the Upload button and from the drop-down list select Files.
3. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the location that contains the scanned copy, select it, and click Open.
3. In the Upload settings message box, check the Convert text from PDF and image files to Google documents check box and click Start upload.
That’s it. Wait for the upload to be done. Now open up the PDF or scanned copy that you uploaded. The extracted text will appear in the following page.
The convert text from PDF and scanned documents option is set by default to the English language, but it also supports over 38 other languages, although the translation services are not very accurate. It is better to run through the extracted text before you share it with others, so you don’t end up looking foolish.
Yet another limitation is that the formatting and layout is just not 100%. Inspite of its limitations, this is one of the better free solutions out there and is definitely worth a try.
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