TextGrabber automatically identifies if the device has access to a stable Internet connection, and if so, uses it to deliver full-text translation into 104 languages in real time. If the device does not have Internet access, the app switches to offline translation, which is essential for travel and everyday situations like understanding menus. Popular Alternatives to TextGrabber for Windows, Mac, Linux, Web, iPad and more. TextGrabber for Android will become free to download and receive the Real-Time Translation functionality in June 2018. Availability and Pricing. TextGrabber for iOS is available on the App Store: The app is free to download. After the first three complimentary uses, some features require a subscription.
I know all the blogging outlets are currently enamored with Evernote's Scannable app. That's fine by me. Anything that gets rid of paper is super in my book.
Text Grabber For Pc
But sometimes, I don't want a PDF or image, I just want text so I can put it somewhere useful. That's where TextGrabber comes in.
After scanning, TextGrabber can immediately present a cropping window but there's not much button mashing to convert the photo to text.1
More importantly, it's two taps to put the text on the clipboard.
Here's the resulting text taken right out of TextGrabber:
The line breaks are the biggest inconvenience but those are easily removed in an app like Editorial. The important part is that it did a pretty good job with relatively complex English words. It failed on the word 'Matabolism' but come on, 'rods and cocci'? That's some good OCR.
I'm finding this app more useful every week (I've owned it for years). While there are many excellent PDF and OCR apps for iOS, none of them are this direct and this accurate.
TextGrabber | Universal | $10
PDFPen Scan+
There are other options. I think TextGrabber is the fastest way to get text off of a physical object, but it may not be worth $10 if you own something else.
PDFPen Scan+ works well too, but takes longer. The interface is fine but each individual step feels more complicated.
Here's the text produced by PDFPen Scan+
Notice how much worse the line breaks are with Scan+. Overall, the OCR is very high quality.
PDFPen Scan+ | Universal | $7
Scanbot
This is one of my favorite apps for mobile document scanning. It still feels a bit buggy on occasion but I love the simplicity that hides a powerful features for uploading documents to many of the services I care about.
Again, TextGrabber feels faster. Scanbot is great for quickly putting documents on my SFTP host. When I just want the text, there's no reason to save the scanned image. It feels like I'm forcing Scanbot into two different jobs.
Scanbot has the best looking interface and feature rich functionality of any scanning app I've used.2
Here's the raw text produced by Scanbot:
The OCR in Scanbot is also excellent.
Scanbot | Universal | Somewhere around $5 with one of many different in-app purchases
Use Cases
So why do this instead of just taking a photo? Because it makes an excellent transcription tool.
I prefer extracting the text from business cards with TextGrabber over scanning it into something like Evernote. Why take a photo of a business card when I just want to get the text so I can create a new contact or make a call.
If I want to call a printed number, I can grab the OCR text and paste it into the iOS dialer. No transcribing. This requires me to trust my OCR, though. Your sensibilities may differ.
This is super-awesome with Drafts. Only Scanbot supports a share sheet that includes Drafts. The others require copy and paste, like an animal.
- This is an excerpt from my well worn and much loved copy of George Fix's Principles of Brewing Science↩
- I own about a dozen scanning apps. I do a lot of paper shredding each week. ↩
I’ve dealt with a lot of mobile scanning apps in the past, but for the most part I’ve found that scanning apps for the iPhone or iPad do not provide nearly as accurate of results as an actual dedicated scanner. As such, at least in my opinion, iOS scanning apps must be able to do something beyond merely grabbing text to really be worth their salt. Fortunately, TextGrabber + Translator ($2.99, link) matches that guideline perfectly.
Overview
Developed by ABBYY, TextGrabber + Translator adds language translation and social sharing to the typical list of iOS scanning app features. The result is an affordable essential all for travelers, businessmen, or anyone who might be presented with documents in a foreign language.
TextGrabber + Translator uses your iPhone or iPod touch camera to capture text from books, magazines, road signs, menus, or other text, analyzes that text via OCR, and produces fully readable and editable text that can be translated to and from over 40 different languages.
Functionality
While the translated text probably isn’t perfect or completely grammatical, it’s main purpose is to provide the user with a decent general idea of what a passage of text says – and according to the head og the linguistics department at the local university, it achieves this goal very well (at least in Spanish and German – that professor’s specialties).
Besides the ability to capture and translate text, the app also incorporates a number of sharing features, allowing you to email or text your results, or share them on Facebook, Twitter, or Evernote. The app is also extremely easy to use – it only requires a few clicks or taps, and is extremely intuitive.
Despite the overall usefulness of TextGrabber + Translate, the app is not without its weaknesses. While the app is able to capture text almost perfectly on matte paper under good lighting conditions, capturing text on glossy paper or in questionable lighting results in quite a few errors in the apps OCR. Even so, I found that the app was able to perform reasonable well under most normal lighting conditions – such as in an office, outdoors on a bright day, or in most stores or restaurants.
I was somewhat disappointed that the app does not preserve the formatting of what is being scanned. For instance, if you are scanning a two paragraph selection, the results is a single mashed-together paragraph that is significantly more difficult to read. I also found myself wishing that there was a version of the app available for the iPad.
Verdict[rating:4]
While TextGrabber + Translate is not without its flaws, it does offer decent recognition and translation in most situations, and absolutely holds its own as an essential utility that no international businessman or world traveler should ever be without. That being said, the app still has a lot of room for improvement.
TextGrabber + Translate is available now for $2.99 from the App Store (link). For more information, head to the TextGrabber page on the ABBYY website.
Textgrabber For Macbook Air
Pros
- Fast.
- Affordable.
- Excellent accuracy under most lighting conditions.
Text Grabber For Mac
Cons
Textgrabber For Macbook Pro
- No iPad version.
- Doesn’t work well in glossy surfaces or in dimly lit environments.