Of the free OCR tools available on the web, Tesseract is easily the best. Originally developed at HP between 1985 and 1995, the program was released as open source in 2005. When it was developed, Tesseract was among the three most accurate English OCR engines. Now, it is the most accurate free OCR engine on the web. While earlier versions of Tesseract could not OCR anything except simple, single-column text, the current version includes layout analysis and can recognize multiple languages.
Most people are deterred from using Tesseract because it lacks a GUI, and can only be run from the command-line interface. Users who are unfamiliar with such software might find it difficult to adjust to the software. However, for people who wish to get around this problem, there are several separate projects that can be found online that provide a GUI for Tesseract, making it an option even for the inexperienced user. If you want a tool that is user-friendly and requires minimal effort, and if you are willing to spend some money, a different program might be better for you. However, among free OCR tools, Tesseract is the leader.
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