Google Docs continues to add new features to its online application without making it too noticeable. So, after putting the ability to upload files of any type and size (in Google Drive), now it adds a very interesting novelty, the OCR function which, in plain words, allows you to extract text from a pdf or an image .
It therefore becomes clear how useful it can be, both in the workplace and for everyday life, to be able to capture the text from a scanned image and a protected pdf document.
For example, you could, in theory, use the scanner to save a book on the computer, extract the text and modify it or you can take a documentation already made, modify it and recycle it (be careful, however, to copy and paste from copyright protected documents).
To activate the OCR function on Docs just go to the settings of Google Drive, activate in the general options, Convert uploads .
At this point, just load a PDF or an image with some text on it in Google Drive, then press on it with the right button once it appears in the list of files and use the Open with option - Google Docs .
The pdf or image will not be loaded in its original format (to have it original, you have to remove the flag from the conversion option seen above), instead it will be a text sheet that can be directly edited with Google Docs tools.
The text file can then be saved again in pdf on the computer or in a Word file, in a txt, in RTF or for OpenOffice.
Clearly, if you upload a PDF and extract the text, you will lose paragraph formatting even if the font, italics and bold settings should remain.
However, there is still a quick and easy way to bring paper books to your computer without having to rewrite them from scratch.
Alternatively, remember that there are other OCR programs to convert images, faxes and pdfs from the scanner to text and that pdf files can be edited with some free software.
Finally, I wanted to remember that on Google Docs you can also do the translation of a text, from one language to another, thanks to the Google Translate service.
The option is in the tools menu, when you open a Word, PDF, Excel or Powerpoint document.
