One of the major breakthroughs in technology is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology recognizes texts embedded on images, captures it and saves it as a plain texts. There are many OCR applications on google playstore which you can use to convert your textual images to plain text. Among these applications are Camscanner , Google Keep, Office Lens, Text Fairy.and a host of others. Converting images to texts with these applications is pretty simple and similar. Basically, it involves taking a photo shot of the text or uploading an already image from your Android device and clicking the convert button.
OCR applications have saved me a lot of stress. I remember when I had cause to quickly send my Curriculum Vitae to a recruiting company. Unfortunately I didn't have a copy of it in my mail and my computer was not within reach. All I did was get the hard copy of my CV, take shots of the pages and boom! I used an OCR app to convert it to text.
The accuracy of image-to-text converters is greatly determined by the quality of the image. In order to achieve a greater accuracy, it is recommended that you use pictures of high quality taken by a fairly good camera.. at least, the picture should be visible enough to be read with the naked eyes.

In this tutorial, I will show you step by step method of how to use Text Fairy app to convert and image text to a plain, editable text . Follow the steps below.

Step 1
Download and install Text Fairy from Playtore.

Step 2
Open your Text Fairy application:

[img]http://2.bp..com/-D5HQTiDn0k8/WQXoNzu_EDI/AAAAAAAAATA/ih-yBigJ1AAuyXvBT-aCgMDVeyKm5VM2QCLcB/s640/how%2Bto%2Bconvert%2Bimage%2Bto%2Btext.jpg[/img]

If you click on "Tap here to convert text from a new image", it will open your phone camera so you can take a picture of the image you intend to convert to text.If you click on the second option- "Tap here to convert text from an existing image", you will be taken to your gallery where you will be required to choose from your stored images. For the purpose of this tutorial, I am going to take a shot of one of my blog posts and convert it to text. Move on to the next step.

Step 3
I haven taken the shot and the image is shown below.
[img]http://1.bp..com/-yXld3hyElGE/WQXv2q-Yk0I/AAAAAAAAATc/pvO1gZ_txJgjUF5NnU7w7RO_xRNTpDBrwCLcB/s640/shot%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bspecimen.jpg[/img]

Now I'm going to tick the Ok button as indicated by the arrow in the above image.

Step 4
Next, I will be required to crop out the particular section of the image I need to convert.
[img]http://4.bp..com/-E5IPbTkM4OQ/WQZiM2ielUI/AAAAAAAAAUo/2qo3JnKSEzY_l0dSdXbYEGZ7ajBNzgoGgCLcB/s1600/crop%2Bout%2Bimage.jpg[/img]

After selecting the area of the image I want to crop out, I will simply click on the convert button. I used an arrow to indicate the convert button. Refer to the above image for illustration.

Step 5
I will decide whether to scan a single column of text, scan multiple columns of text or simply Save the image unchanged. I normally choose the first option since I want one single column to be scanned. Next I will be required to choose my language. by default, the language is set to English. I will Press the OK button afterwards

[img]http://2.bp..com/-KbfpYu8rZsA/WQX1RQLoC0I/AAAAAAAAAT0/VRsDTPdc4bc5Mpa5lRLa4mmBMwI89wCRACLcB/s640/select%2Blanguage.jpg[/img]

Step 6
After clicking the OK button, the conversion process will begin.

[img]http://4.bp..com/-O-LbTKGSlN0/WQX7FdGSU_I/AAAAAAAAAUE/2e4AqHzGTMoT07VsdwABpGUn-JLEGaBLACLcB/s640/image%2Bconversion%2Bprocess.jpg[/img]

When done,you will be shown several options to choose from. You can decide to share the converted text, convert it to PDF, speak text or simply copy to clipboard. You can just preview the image by pressing the Ok button
[img]http://3.bp..com/-PlVX4cg2m0g/WQX8C8QxzEI/AAAAAAAAAUM/LG10kpDtuw4ajiePIcRgTb2-9HVTeQnNACLcB/s640/choose%2Bfrom%2Boptions.jpg[/img]

The converted image is as shown below. As you can see from the above image, the converted text is 78% accurate
[img]http://2.bp..com/-elmFj_7WXBI/WQZf_T-HYkI/AAAAAAAAAUc/pefJFjgtsRwljprxDAA8A8c1KX1uPWKBQCLcB/s1600/converted%2Bresult.jpg[/img]

To improve on the accuracy, I can take a clearer shot of the image or simply correct the errors by editing the text. Accuracy is also determined by the kind of app used for the conversion. You can try different apps until you get your desired result.

Thanks for reading my post. I hope you found this article useful. Please share this article with your friends as they may find it useful.
Source: http://www.hacksundiluted.cf/2017/04/how-do-i-copy-or-save-image-as-text.html

Nice one

LalasticlalA
Mynd44

gud job guy! but can it convert tabular image too?

pauloman83:
gud job guy! but can it convert tabular image too?

Yes... Simply choose "scan multiple columns" option .

folarinmiles:
Nice one

Thanks for reading

I dey come o

Impressive

Educative nice one op

...

Lemme try this

Hshsjiweiksjzhsj

Superb! Washere Op

Copy and paste / screen grabbing just got more interesting.

Wow! Nairaland has been my classroom for months now, this is why. Thanks op, thank you Seun.

Nice one!

it's too long to read...som1 shud summarize 4 me jor!!

Nice one OP. But please, is there any PC software which can also do the same thing?

op. thanks for a good work here. bless u

Nice Op.... The app is user friendly itself...

The process sef pass project work

You can also try Microsoft OneNote.

Does a pretty good job

Thank you very much

Typist!

Goggles does a good job too...nice one op

Imagine someone complaining its too long while someone out there is already creating a gig on freelancing sites on this and will be raking in cash with this info

I have been using OCR both on phone and laptop for over 2years now. It's really useful.

For computer users, try Abbyy FineReader OCR. It's the most accurate among all OCR I have used.

I will try this just for fun

How do I edit the text?

TheLawTheLegal:
Thanks Op. But which of The apps is The best or which one do you use mostly?

This app - Scan to Text is probably the best as it neatly arrange the text for you. Download Here

If you are using Gionee, no need for any app, just use the carry come Text Recognition feature and convert to text

educative

thanks

nuelsylves:
I have been using OCR both on phone and laptop for over 2years now. It's really useful.

For computer users, try Abbyy FineReader OCR. It's the most accurate among all OCR I have used.