Google Docs adds OCR for PDFs and images

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Google has added a new feature to their Google Docs platform; OCR for PDF and images files. OCR or optical character recognition will read the the text embedded into a PDF or image so that you can edit the document in a normal text editor.

OCR is not completely accurate though. Even if the text in the image was generated by a computer originally there can be artifacts or letters that seems to run together when the OCR reader is scanning the document which can lead to errors in the conversion. Most of the time though, the majority of the text is converted accurately so the amount of text you have to fix is minimal making the service a pretty good time saver.

When uploading documents to your Google Docs space you will now be asked if you would like to 'Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents.' The Unofficial news and tips about Google blog tested the new service (pictured below) and found that about 10% of the text was incorrectly converted and the formatting was not preserved.

 
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