Image to Text - Playbook?

**kylebyrne** · 03-14-2012, 04:49 AM

Hello, is there any apps which use the Playbooks camera to scan a paper document or take a picture of it then make it into text?

Would be very good app!

**zethaaron** · 03-14-2012, 10:37 AM

I've been thinking for a while it would be quite interesting if we could get an app which you could essentially use to scan a sheet of paper by running the PlayBook over it and splicing all of the imaging together to create a page. It would be pretty cool. Anyway, I don't know of anything that can do that or what you're asking.

**Blackman91** · 02-04-2013, 09:34 AM

IOS has pretty good apps to convert image to text like textgrabber, android too but i dont think there is a similar app for the playbook, maybe someone could try to sideload one?

F2 · 02-04-2013, 10:26 AM

there is an andriod app that SUPPOSEDLY. does that but I could never get it to work.

**jeroen_13** · 02-04-2013, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by F2

there is an andriod app that SUPPOSEDLY. does that but I could never get it to work.

Name of the app ??

F2 · 02-04-2013, 02:23 PM

sorry but I do not recall and am out of the country with no access to archives

**bus_driver** · 02-07-2013, 09:31 AM

Not being negative... but
Save yourself some grief, don't go there. The PB camera is not good enough to do what you want. Lack of autofocus. I know because I've tried to do this including buying the app PDF Creator Ultimate. I wanted a searchable PDF. PDF CU didn't do OCR, but I even thought of xfering the image to my PC for that. I didn't even try because I would assume results would be disappointing as the original scan was so fuzzy. There is probably no way around this.

**Blackman91** · 03-05-2013, 11:37 AM

I have actually taken a lot of photos to book pages with my playbook (using advanced camera) and the quality of the letters is good. Seriously image to text apps like textgrabber in ios are one of the most useful apps I have encountered, we need definitely an app like this for the playbook or bb10.

**Blackman91** · 03-28-2013, 11:53 PM

Awesome:

We need an app like that on the playbook or z10.

**Blackman91** · 03-29-2013, 03:48 AM

Found a workaround to convert image to text in the playbook (you need a google drive account):
Sideload this document scanner android app to your playbook: http://db.tt/5a7Y69Hd

Open the app and import or take a photo of the text you want to scan, crop and adjust the contrast, color and brightness of your image, select your scan and select pdf, then select Drive OCR, login into your google drive account, once done press upload and done and wait for the app to upload the image, don't close the app you'll get a notification in the upper left corner when the document finishes uploading, go now to your google drive account and download the document and open it with docs to go (if you have the app files and folders just select download and open), once opened you will see your image and under the image you will see the converted text.

let me know if this method works for you too guys.

Note: for this method to work the image of the text you want to convert must be of good quality, so remember to take the photos with your playbook in good lighting.

**Blackman91** · 03-30-2013, 07:12 PM

Example of the results you can get using the above method:

**Blackman91** · 04-20-2013, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by Blackman91

Found a workaround to convert image to text in the playbook (you need a google drive account):
Sideload this document scanner android app to your playbook: http://db.tt/5a7Y69Hd

It appears that app is now available on blackberry world, just search "scanner" and you'll find it.

F2 · 04-20-2013, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by Blackman91

It appears that app is now available on blackberry world, just search "scanner" and you'll find it.

A bit more detail - what is the name in BBWorld? And is it free or $$$? I see one or two that create pdf files? So I might be looking at the wrong one(s).

Thanks in advance

edited to add: Ah, Document Scanner