Here I have an image file and I want to copy text from this image.
We're going to look at a few different ways that you can do this.
They're all really easy to do, and chances are you've already used some of these apps before.
Let's check this out.
First, we're going to use Google Drive together with Google Docs, and with this technique,
you don't have to install any software, although you will need a Google account.
Head to Google.com, and in the top right-hand corner,
click on the app launcher and then select Drive.
On Google Drive, you can now drag and drop your image file into Drive.
You could extract text from PNGs, JPEGs, GIFs, or PDFs.
Once you finish uploading your file, right click on it and then select open in Google Docs.
When Google Docs opens,
you should see your original image file with the extracted text underneath it.
You can now copy that text and you could use it anywhere.
You could also go up to the file menu and you could download a Word document or a PDF.
If you have multiple pages that you would like to convert into text, the most efficient way
to do that is to batch it all together as one PDF and then run through this same exact flow.
Second, we're going to look at a free tool called Power Toys, and this is developed by Microsoft.
You could download it in the Microsoft Store, or you could just click on the link right up above.
Once you finish installing, you'll see an interface that looks like this,
and there are many useful utilities. Here for example, you have a universal color picker.
You also have something called Fancy Zones, and this is basically a souped-up version of snap
windows. Down in the bottom left-hand corner, you'll see something called Text Extractor.
When we click on that, you'll see this shortcut key combination that
you can press to launch text extraction.
Press the Windows Key together with shift and T.
Here I have my image file open with text.
I’ll press windows + shift and T and here I could highlight the text.
Once I finish highlighting it, it'll add all of that text to my clipboard,
and now I could open up an application like Notepad and I can paste in that text.
Next, we're going to look at another free tool called ShareX.
If you've never heard of this before, this is by far one of the most powerful screenshotting tools.
You can download this through the Microsoft Store, or once again, you can click on the link up above.
Once you finish installing ShareX, over on the left-hand side,
click on tools and you'll see an option for OCR.
This stands for optical character recognition.
We're basically recognizing what characters are in this image.
Here, just like with Power Toys, you can highlight
the text and this now shows the text here in this preview window.
One of the things I really like about using ShareX is you can convert it,
so it just uses one line, so you don't get any of these weird paragraph breaks. Here you can
now copy the text and then you could use this anywhere. Fourth, we're going to use an app
that you likely already have installed on your computer, Microsoft’s OneNote.
Open up OneNote and then paste the image into one of the pages.
You can right click on it, and you can copy text from picture.
This adds the text to your clipboard, and you can now paste that anywhere else,
and there you have all of your text.
Lastly, you can also use Microsoft Word, but this only works with PDF files.
Simply take a PDF file and drag and drop it onto the Word start page, then click on OK,
and this will convert the PDF into text, and you can now edit it. Now, if you have a PNG,
a JPEG, or a GIF, you could still use this, but it's a little bit more roundabout.
Simply paste your image into a Word document, then go up to file save, and you can save it as a PDF,
and then you just run through the steps of dragging and dropping the PDF into Word.
All right, well, let me know down below in the comments which method do you like the most?
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