65% of people retain information from images.

Maybe that’s why everyone uses images everywhere, social media, Whatsapp groups, Reddit chats, blogs, emails, and more! Why write the text when you can just snip and share?

It’s all fine when we’re just sharing memes or other non-relevant material. But, if you receive text-heavy snapshots at work, well, things are about to get messy. Who has the time to rewrite all the text from images?

Well, Google Docs and Google Drive have your back. However, there is a secret tool we didn’t know about! Google Drive OCR tool.

Yes, Google has a hidden OCR tool that you can use to convert images to text in minutes. Let’s look at this Google Docs OCR tool and its use.

How to use Google Docs OCR to convert images to text?

Let’s consider you have an image and you want to extract text from the image using Google.

Step 1: Upload the image on Google Drive. Here is the image I’m uploading. I expect the output to contain “Put document collection on autopilot”.

Step 2: Right-click the image. Select Open with > Google Docs

Step 3: Wait for some time. A new document will open text in the image at the bottom.

P.S: To my surprise – The Google Drive OCR tool extracted the text from the email image that was present on the right! Even though the formatting wasn’t great, it did the job well.

Can you convert text-heavy images to text with Google Drive?

Let’s try two more experiments. One with less text and the other with more text and feed them to the Google Drive OCR tool. I’ll take snapshots of text from two of our Nanonets blogs.

Let’s check out the results.

The Google Docs OCR tool extracted the entire text, but there were some formatting issues. So it’s not perfect, but if you’re ready to put in a little effort, you can make it work!

Again, it’s not perfect. While the image-to-text Google tool tries to imitate the bold sections and subheadings, it requires some post-processing.

While it may not be the perfect tool, it is better than writing the entire text yourself!

You can use Google drive OCR to convert PDF to text. Google documentation sheds some light on how you can prepare your files for using the Google image to text feature:

• The file should be 2MB or less.
• The text should be 10 pixels or higher.
• The image or document should be upright. Otherwise, you can use the rotate tool.
• The Google image to text tool works best with standard fonts like Arial or Time New Roman.

Google Drive OCR Alternative: Nanonets

Are you looking to convert image to text?

We have a free tool to convert image to text in seconds with 95% accuracy.

Are you looking for image-to-text OCR software for enterprises?

Nanonets is AI-based OCR software that can extract text from PDFs, images, and documents with 95% accuracy in 200+ languages. In addition, with automated document workflows, Nanonets can automate every aspect of your manual document processes, like document data capture, document classification, document storage, and more.

You can use pre-trained OCR models to extract data from PDFs, invoices, emails, bills, receipts, passports, and more without writing a single line of code.

It is perfect for enterprises due to following reasons:

• Setup in <1 Day
• Free Trial Plans
• Pay as You go plans
• 24×7 Support
• Modern UI – Better than all the OCR software out there!
• Pre-trained OCR models
• Train Custom Model in 15 minutes
• Professional OCR Services – Our team creates and trains your models
• Training Support
• Automate Accounts Payable, Customer Onboarding, Mailroom, and more.
• Connect with 5000+ Software with API & Zapier