The quick answer is yes, Google Docs has an OCR feature that can convert scanned documents into editable text. You can access this feature by uploading a scanned image or PDF to Google Drive and then opening it with Google Docs.
Here's how to use OCR in Google Docs:
Go to Google Drive and upload the scanned document by clicking on "New" then selecting "File upload."
Right-click on the file in Google Drive, select "Open with," and then choose "Google Docs." Google will automatically convert the document to text format using OCR.
However, Google Docs OCR is primarily designed for basic text recognition and may not handle complex layouts or specialized data extraction effectively.
For more advanced and specific data extraction, Lido might be a better choice. You can sign up here for free: https://www.lido.app/go/signup.
Here, we'll use Lido's PDF importer tool to extract text from a provided PDF:
Log into your Lido account and head to the Files page. Start a new spreadsheet by clicking on "New file," which will serve to organize and analyze the data extracted from your document.
In your new spreadsheet, click on the "File" menu at the top. Choose the "Import from PDF" option from the dropdown menu. This tool will help convert document data into a structured spreadsheet format.
Click on "Click to Upload" within the importer tool and select the document you want to upload from your computer, or simply drag and drop the file.
Once the document is uploaded, an interface will appear to select the specific areas you want to extract.
Adjust the selection box by dragging its corners to include all relevant parts of the document, then press "Extract data" to begin the extraction process.
Check the new window to ensure your data is complete and correctly extracted.
Each line of text from non-tabular sections will be placed in a separate cell. Tabular data, if present, will be extracted as tables. Any non-tabular text will be ignored if it's outside the selected area.
Once you have verified the data, click "Insert at active cell" to finalize the process. If additional data needs extraction, click "Back" to return and repeat the process.
We hope that you now know how to use OCR with Google Docs.
