New Gboard OCR feature rolling out for Android, bringing easier text scanning

Back in 2023, we spotted that Google had been testing a feature, that could make text scanning easier, and now Gboard has started to roll out the Scan Text OCR feature for Android devices. Notably, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a tool that streamlines text recognition within images directly through the keyboard.

To be mentioned, this new OCR Scan Text feature appears in the grid of Gboard capabilities and can be dragged to the toolbar for quick access. To use the feature, users will first need to grant Gboard the camera permission, then, open the Gboard keyboard and tap the new Scan text tile.

Now, just take a photo of the text you want to scan, and once Gboard has processed the photo, it will highlight the recognized text and allow users to select the text and insert the text into the input field. Also, the selection tool remains open in case you want to select something else.

This process is faster than opening Google Lens, especially if you move the Scan text tile to the shortcuts row. Accordingly, this OCR feature of Gboard is extremely helpful for students and multitaskers as it makes text scanning easier than ever. Consequently, the feature has started to release but currently, there is no information available about its wider rollout.

Via