FreeOCR 2.5

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This free utility does the basic task of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The installation program is only 4.47 Mbytes, but you may also need to download net Framework 2.0 or later if you don’t already have it. That is over 20 Mbytes.

When you fist run the program it will load a sample image. Click the OCR button on the main toolbar to convert the image into text.

Click the scan button to import an image from your scanner, or click the open button if you already have a scan saved on disk. It will open BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF or multipage TIF. Images with good contrast are best. Although it can read text on a coloured background, black and white images will usually give the best results, and at least 200 dpi is recommended.

Click the Open PDF button to open a PDF document. This worked perfectly on the files that I tested — one single page document produced from PagePlus X3, and one fifty-five page document produced from OpenOffice Writer. As you can see in the screenshot, the text on the Open PDF button doesn’t quite fit, which may be due to my large system fonts.

Free OCR WindowDrag to select area to recogniseClear Selected AreaRotate Image ClockwiseRotate Image AnticlockwiseZoom OutZoom InFit Image to WidthFit Image to WindowRecognised Text (drag to select )Select LanguageGet Image from ScannerOpen Image FileOpen PDF FileRecognise TextOpen Online Help in BrowserClear Text PaneSave as Plain Text FileRemove Line BreaksCopy to Windows ClipboardOpen in Word (generates error if not installed)Scroll to Zoom (except if Fit to Page)Drag to Resize PanesNext PagePrevious PageSize of Current Image (pixels)

The first two buttons on the image toolbar let you page through a multipage tiff image, or a multipage PDF document. The next two zoom the image to fit, and to fit the width. You can zoom in or out with the next two buttons, and below that are buttons to rotate an image anticlockwise or clockwise. The last button clears any selection you have made on the image with the mouse. Selecting an area with the mouse before clicking the OCR button enables users to select columns or blocks of text.

The central divider between the image pane and the text pane can be dragged to resize the panes. The first button on the text toolbar will clear the contents of the text pane, ready for the next task. The second button saves to a plain text file. The third button removes all line breaks. This is all or nothing; it won’t work on just the selected text. The fourth button copies the text to the clipboard, and the fifth button copies the text into Word (if you have it installed).

The file menu lets you open or save a file, select a scanner, save text to a file, or exit.  From the OCR menu you can start recognising text, change the image contrast and brightness, or clear a selected area. The text menu repeats the button options to clear the text window, save text to a file, copy text to the clipboard, or remove line breaks. The settings menu opens the program’s data folder in Windows Explorer, where you can copy the files needed to recognise text in additional languages. The help menu tells you the current version details, and provides links to online help, and to the FreeOCR web site where you can install other languages or download other programs.

That is about all there is to it. The most commonly needed functions are just one click away: scan, open, rotate, recognise, copy to clipboard or save. If all you need to do is read plain English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, or Vietnamese text, this free utility may be all that you need.