Gboard rolling out ‘Scan Text’ OCR tool on Android

Gboard for Android is beginning to roll out a rather nifty “Scan Text” optical character recognition (OCR) tool.

Scan Text appears in the grid of Gboard capabilities and can be dragged to the toolbar for quick access. After granting Gboard the camera permission, you’ll get a viewfinder that takes up over half the screen. Tap the button to “Take a photo of words to scan.”

Gboard then highlights all the text it sees on the page. You can tap and drag to select, with a preview appearing and a large “Insert” button. 

The tool remains open after the text is inserted if you want to select something else. Tap the back arrow in the top-left corner to take another picture, while the close button brings you to the full keyboard.

For some, this might be faster and more convenient than using Google Lens, while OCR accuracy seems to be on par. A “select all” option would make for a nice addition.

We first spotted Scan Text in November and it’s now rolling out to the latest Gboard beta (version 13.9). It’s not yet widely available.

More on Gboard:

Gboard’s Gemini Nano Smart Reply supports two more apps on Pixel 8 Pro

Gboard preps ‘Seamless voice typing’ that lets you instantly start talking

Gboard rolling out Assistant voice typing toolbar on Pixel Tablet

Gboard adds new physical keyboard toolbar for Android tablets

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