Tag Archives: OCRResult

OCR in Windows 10

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Believe it or not, Windows 10 comes with OCR capabilities out of the box. It’s actually very easy to use as well; admittedly, it’s not the most sensitive in the world – but it does basically work. Here’s how you would scan in a bitmap image and recognise characters:

        public async string RecogniseOCR()
        {                        
            var ocrEngine = Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine.TryCreateFromLanguage(new Windows.Globalization.Language("en"));
            
            var file = await Package.Current.InstalledLocation.GetFileAsync(@"Assets\test.bmp");            
            using (var stream = await file.OpenAsync(Windows.Storage.FileAccessMode.Read))
            {
                // Create image decoder.
                var decoder = await BitmapDecoder.CreateAsync(stream);

                // Load bitmap.
                var bitmap = await decoder.GetSoftwareBitmapAsync();

                // Extract text from image.
                OcrResult result = await ocrEngine.RecognizeAsync(bitmap);

                // Return recognized text.
                return result.Text;
            }
        }

I scanned this image:

OCRScan

And it found this:

OCRScan2

Like I said – not the most sensitive recognition in the world, but still, it’s there in Windows 10! What’s remarkable is that I only found it by accident – another example of Microsoft marketing missing a huge opportunity.