© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Google is working on a new ‘Scan Text’ feature for Gboard for Android. Similar to how the Lens app can recognise text characters from images, the new functionality uses ‘Optical Character Recognition’ to extract text from photos from the phone’s camera and lets users paste it wherever they want to.
According to a recent report by 9to5Google, the new option appears alongside the existing ‘Translate’ and ‘Proofread’ toggles. Tapping on it opens a viewfinder on the bottom half of the screen and lets users choose from an existing photo or click a new one. However, it requires the user to grant Gboard access to the device camera.
When ‘Scan Text’ detects text in an image, it will highlight the text which can be inserted in any text field. When you are done pasting the text, the tool remains open so users can extract text from other images.
The report also suggests that the OCR accuracy is similar to other Google products like the Lens app. The new feature is currently available on Gboard for Android 13.6 beta, but it is still unclear when it will be available for everyone.
In the last few months, Google has been rolling out several new features for Gboard like a new resize option that lets users adjust the height of the keyboard according to their preferences and a new split keyboard interface to name a few.
