Whilst most people are increasingly using smartphones or scanners to scan and send important documents. Well, it's a good practice to store documents in a digital medium. This eliminates the chances of them getting soiled or lost. But, what about handwritten notes? We all have a ton of handwritten notes and documents stacked up. How do you turn those into digital notes?
Well typing them back is an option but frankly let's just avoid it. So, there are apps which let you convert your handwritten text and notes into digital text using advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. So, below are few Android Apps which not only converts your Handwritten Notes to Digital documents but also let you edit them.
Android Apps to Convert Handwritten Notes to Editable Text
1. Microsoft Office Lens
Jul 22, 2019 Convert Type To Handwriting OCR tools analyze the handwritten or typed text in images and compare it with fonts in a database How to Find Free Fonts Similar to Paid Fonts by Appearance How to Find Free Fonts Similar to Paid Fonts by Appearance Finding the perfect font can be a challenge, especially if you can't afford to pay for one. Apr 24, 2020 this video with hindi audio- you can download my font from the link given below- https://drive.g. Aug 13, 2020 If you need a change from the conventional on-screen keyboard, the Samsung Note 10 offers a fantastic solution. You can use the remarkable Samsung Galaxy S-pen to write manually and convert your handwriting to text. Even more, you can quickly turn the text into a Microsoft Word document or paste the text into an email. Turn Your Handwriting into Digital Notes for the Best of Both Worlds. I have long been searching for an app that will convert handwriting to text, and I thought this was going to.
Convert Pdf Handwriting To Text
One Note is a fully functional note-taking app from Microsoft. To assist it, Microsoft has another awesome app called Office Lens. It is a scanner app that will quickly take a snap of your text and turn it into digital format. The only caveat is that You will have to download One Note, to use the OCR feature of Office Lens.
You can scan notes, whiteboard, and handouts using the powerful scanner function. To do that, download and install the Office Lens app and follow the below-mentioned steps.
1. Open the app and you will have the camera interface open directly. Point the camera towards the text. The app will detect the area where the handwritten text is located and scan it. You can manually center the app and adjust the focus if you want. Once you have the desired frame, tap on the shutter button to take a snap.
2. When the snap is loaded, you will be presented with the cropped text area. Now, you can edit the selection or approve it. You have a bunch of crop, edit and adjustment tools on the top of the page. To edit the pic click on the crop button at the top. Now, on the edit screen readjust the points to select only the text area. Once you have the area selected, tap on Done.
3. Click on the check button to work with the current selection and move to the next step. Alternatively, you can also click on the button adjacent to the check button to it to discard the image.
4. Once you approve the selection, you will be asked for the format you want to save the file in. You can save it in Word, PowerPoint, One Note or Save it directly as a PDF or a photo.
5. I have imported the photo in Word and that is where you will get the OCR text. OCR text works well only for whiteboard handwritten texts and won't work for text on paper. The extracted text looks like the following.
Because Office Lens is a Microsoft product, it integrates tightly with other Microsoft products like Office 365 suite and One Drive. If you use the Microsoft Office suite, then this app should be the ideal choice. No matter how complex the text is, Office Lens just simply works without any effort. However, you will have to sign in or create an account a Microsoft account first.
Office lens comes with 4 different options: Document, Whiteboard, Business Card, and Photo. For each of this setting, the app will adjust the brightness and contrast settings to increase visibility and accuracy. Choose the above option depending on what text surface you are dealing with. Whiteboards are usually tricky because there is this glare which makes the image difficult to read and process. But since Lens has a special option just for that, it gets pretty easy.
Office Lens is a great tool to scan and store all your notes, whether they are handwritten or printed. It also makes sorting and searching much easier. Office Lens is probably the most powerful image to text scanner available on the Android platform to date.
Download Microsoft Office lens
2. Text Scanner OCR
Another high-quality Image to Text OCR scanner is Text Scanner OCR. It comes as a second choice to Microsoft Office Lens. We often see website URLs and phone numbers printed on newspapers, magazines, and visiting cards. Now, using Text Scanner OCR you can quickly call on those numbers or visit the website URLs without even typing them.
Extracting text from an image with Text Scanner OCR is fairly simple and a 2-step process. When you launch the app, it will directly open the camera. After you grant the necessary permissions, you can begin scanning notes and documents.
1. Point the camera towards the board or the handwritten note from where you want to grab the text. Like Office Lens, you can manually adjust the focus. Once the focus is set, tap on the shutter button to take a snap.
2. After you have taken the snap, the app processes the image. Post-processing, you will get the text extracted from the image on a blank white canvas. From here, you can choose to either edit the text or share it.
The app also provides some additional settings like you can set the phone to vibrate when the text is read successfully. And for some reason, you can also choose different audio sounds to play instead of vibration. Another thing that I liked is the ability to manually edit the text which is missing in Microsoft Office Lens.
Text Scanner OCR is the fastest handwriting to text converter available for free and hence it has ads. You will see banner ads after the image is processed. It can be a little annoying at times but this is how the developer earns bread and butter. If you are annoyed by the ads, then you can upgrade to the premium variant starting at 1.75$ a month.
Handwriting Converter
Download Text Scanner OCR
3. Post It
Okay, this next app belongs on this list just because how ingenious it is. We all love taking notes on Post-Its and it is the most common item in the meeting room. The only option to digitize those notes was to either manually click a picture of every note on the board or take a whole image and zoom in to make out what was originally written. Post-It has come up with an official app that would help digitize the notes all at once. You just have to point the camera towards the notes and the app recognizes all the notes at once.
You can organize the notes in groups and rename them for better organization. You keep the original orientation and layout as it were in the image or rearrange them with just the tap of a button. The best part about it is that it can even detect slightly bent notes and then align it using the algorithms. However, it did have difficulty scanning rectangular Post-Its which can be fixed by manually selecting the notes in the preview mode.
Overall, this app is a must-have for anyone who takes notes on Post-Its and even though it doesn't actually convert the handwritten text to editable text, I still love it.
Download Post-It
Closing Words
Office Lens works flawlessly when it comes to scanning typed texts. On the other hand, Text Scanner OCR works really well when it comes to handwritten notes whether it's a piece of paper or whiteboard. However, I found Office Lens to be slightly better because of the native Office 365 integration. Another plus point is the ad-free experience.
Having said that, Office Lens fails when it comes to handwritten texts on paper. Office Lens also provides different settings like the whiteboard, business cards, and documents because of its ability to adjust brightness and contrast. But, if you don't use Office 365 and you just want a quick and easy way to convert an image to text, Text Scanner OCR works great. It just works and you don't need OneNote or anything else. So, in the end, it really depends on your usage and purpose.
Let us know of any other alternatives that you use to convert the handwritten text in the comments below.
If you take notes by hand on your mobile device – either with your finger or a stylus – you know there's no substitute for a solid handwriting recognition app to make all your scribbles legible.
Handwriting recognition has been around for decades, starting with the PalmPilot and the Newton MessagePad from the 1990s. These popular PDAs recognized character input with a stylus. You had to write legibly for the Newton to recognize lettering, and you had to learn the Graffiti language for the Palm to do the same.
Many mobile apps let you draw letters, strokes and shapes onscreen with iOS and Android devices, but only a few recognize, translate or digitize that input.
The following apps can automatically recognize and digitize your handwriting. Some of the apps are free, some operate with integrated keyboards, while others have in-app purchases or fees, or rely on the MyScript AI handwriting recognition and digital ink management engine.
MetaMoJi Note ($7.99)
Credit: MetaMojiThis colorful notebook, sketchbook and scrapbook app supports voice input, PDF annotation and handwriting-to-text conversion with the Mazec helper app.
The app offers a large assortment of pens, calligraphy pens and inks, graphics, and layouts for writing and sketching. You can edit and tag voice memos to visuals or documents – or import a PDF file, mark it up and save it back out as a PDF. You can share notes via email, Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr, or store and share files with Google Drive, Evernote and Dropbox. You can sync all folders to the MetaMoJi Cloud, which saves and manages up to 2GB documents for free and password protect your notes.
A Gold Service for $29.99 per year, or $4.99 per month, gives you additional flexible features, including a shared drive for coediting documents, interval-based auto sync for backing up notes, more cloud storage, access to additional inks and papers, and the ability to customize the navigation bar.
Notes Plus ($9.99)
Credit: Notes PlusNotes Plus is a gesture-based writing app for iPhone and iPad that supports more than 50 languages and delivers fluid handwriting capabilities, complete with ink effects, palm rejection, shape recognition and a close-up writing mode. The interface is stylish, fun, and responsive, with plenty of options to scale or move elements around the page – and it offers variable ink styles, colors, thicknesses, and writing implements.
Combined with the MyScript engine, Notes Plus translates your scribble into text, accepts text input and export notes as PDF or images to email, Dropbox, Google Drive and Evernote. You can import PDF and Word documents and insert images from the photos or camera app. Audio input lets you record notes. The app is compatible with styluses from Wacom, Adonit and Apple Pencil. A recent update supports the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil 2 and iOS 12.
Google Handwriting Input (free)
Credit: GoogleGoogle Handwriting Input, an Android-only app, translates your scribbles directly onscreen as you write. Upon installing the app, you get a few setup panes where you can choose your language and an optional keyboard, which lets you use the utility with other text input apps. In addition to supporting over 100 languages, it allows easy input of ideographic lettering and voice, and recognizes emoji-style drawings.
Apt get install ssh keygen. This app understands the sloppiest scrawl quite well and offers predictive text at the top of the window to let you tweak its interpretation – or you can correct spelling directly on the text output.
An online feature sends information to Google to decipher your handwriting to improve the recognition engine, but you can opt out of this in favor of more private local device translation. While there is no specific iOS version, you can enable Google Handwrite in mobile Safari or Chrome to search with finger or stylus.
MyScript Nebo ($7.99)
Credit: MyScriptMyScript Nebo is specifically designed to use with the Apple iPad Pro and Pencil or the latest versions of Android with an active stylus, like S Pen or a Wacom pen. Adobe freehand for mac.
The app is now compatible with the iPad Pro 2018 and the second-generation Apple Pencil. Nebo uses its interactive ink tech to facilitate writing, drawing and formatting notes in addition to converting text into shareable documents.
New updates facilitate better performance with math objects as well as overall improvements to note management. A new library lets you view notebooks and collections in a side panel, which allows for rearranging documents via drag and drop. An enhanced search engine covers your whole library.
In addition to editing and formatting in 65 languages, you can sketch; annotate images; create editable equations; adjust type size and device orientation; organize notes in pages, notebooks, and folders; and search, store, or sync with Dropbox. You can export documents as text, Word, PDF or HTML. You can also copy, paste and edit diagrams to PowerPoint.
WritePad for iPad ($4.99)
Credit: WritePadIf you prefer to write longhand but need to see your text in digital format, consider WritePad for iPad. You can configure a host of options to recognize input forms and predefined commands, or you can input lettering with your finger or a stylus.
When you're done with a word, the app automatically converts your scrawl to text. The app learns your writing style to reduce mistakes. Gestures let you select, cut, copy, paste and insert special characters. Four recognition modes let you enter cursive, print, numeric text for phone numbers and internet language for email addresses and URLs. Updates include a new invert toolbar colors option and better integration with the file manager. It is now optimized for iOS 12 and the third generation iPad Pro.
The Android or iOS app supports a dozen languages and can translate back and forth between them. It also has a spell checker with a custom dictionary, a context analyzer, auto-corrector, and a shorthand editor that accepts frequently used words and phrases. It syncs with Evernote, Box, Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive and iTunes. You can even tweet or post Facebook updates directly from the app.
Mazec ($12.99)
Credit: MazecMazec is a keyboard app that provides handwriting conversion to text in a variety of apps like email, notes and social posts. Semantic databases, combined with the MyScript engine, let you search, browse the web and complete online forms. You can choose font size, auto-scroll area width, word spacing and more. Updates improve the built-in dictionaries and streamline Apple Pencil usability.
As you begin to write, Mazec displays predictive suggestions and phrases to choose from so you usually don't have to write out an entire word before the app completes it. Mazec intelligently detects your choices, learns specific phrases and even offers emojis – if you write 'emoji' or a recognized emoji category name. Mazec supports 12 languages, but you must buy a language pack if you want to use any other than the one you signed in with. It works on Android or iOS.
GoodNotes 5 ($7.99)
Credit: GoodNotesIf you seek a powerful note-taking and PDF annotation app with handwriting recognition, check out the updated GoodNotes 5 for searchable notebook and document creation.
The app's pen tool offers a choice of letter colors and thicknesses. Shape recognition automatically creates recognizable shapes from freehand drawings. Work with text boxes and images and move items around as well as zoom, scroll and turn pages.
Version 5 adds features like horizontal and vertical flexible scrolling, the ability to create an unlimited number of folders and subfolders, and search capabilities via handwritten notes, typed text or document and folder titles. The new version also features shortcuts to various pages, documents, or folders; a QuickNotes feature that gets your notes started quickly; and an option to display documents as lists.
An improved ink algorithm eases the writing experience. Updated brush pen and shape tools offer more colorful and creative notes while a new template library offers distinctive covers and pages. GoodNotes now supports the new iPad Pro and the second-generation Apple Pencil. With iCloud, you can sync your notebooks across all your iOS devices.
Pen to Print (free)
Credit: Serendi LTDIn a variation on the handwriting recognition concept, Pen to Print reads scanned handwritten documents and converts them into editable, searchable digital text that can be stored on your device or within a cloud service.
The app's handwriting OCR (optical character recognition) engine extracts text from paper documents, like letters, school notes, meeting notes, and grocery lists, allowing those who prefer to write in longhand the freedom to continue.
The handwriting recognition system works with block letters, cursive and script.
A premium monthly and yearly subscription plans let you save your text to a file, copy, email, add to Notes, or share on Message, WhatsApp, Hangout, WeChat, Messenger, and Telegram. You can transfer the text to word processors like Microsoft Word or Google Docs, or export to Evernote, OneNote or Google Keep. The app works with iOS 9 or later and Android 4.4 and later in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.