Free OCR to Word 7.8.2

Free OCR to Word offers a simple solution to extracting text from image-based files, such as scanned documents. The program can open the most common image files and its OCR engine can recognize any text, regardless of the quality of the image, in a snap. The text can then be edited either directly on the program’s interface or exported to a TXT or Word file for further editing.

The program’s two-paneled interface couldn’t be easier to use. While the left-hand panel is used to display the selected image file, the one on the right will show you the corresponding text as soon as the scan has finished. The image can be rotated clockwise and anticlockwise – useful to deal with any text placed vertically on the image – as well as enlarged or reduced at will. As for the text, you can save it directly as a TXT file or export it to a Microsoft Word document. Before that, you can remove all line breaks with just one click and copy it to the clipboard to be used straightaway on any other application that supports pasting text.

It is a pity, though, that such simple and straightforward approach doesn’t convey the expected results. Being a free and easy-to-use utility that anyone can master in mere seconds, Free OCR to Word would be the perfect addition to our desktop if only the accuracy of its OCR engine would be closer to average. The program’s developers claim in their website that the OCR accuracy they offer can reach 98%, but my experience says otherwise. Even with simple and clear samples, the program struggled to produce texts that required but minor or no corrections. In most cases, however, deep text editing and rewriting were required. To top it all off, the program was unable to open all the JPG files I had selected for review.

All in all, Free OCR to Word seems to be working in the right direction to offer the free and easy tool that we all would like to have installed on our computer. Regrettably, they seem to be still a bit far from reaching that goal.