# Software to crop jpeg like a scanner

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 9, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087 "2014-05-09T23:19:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Simple\_Mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@Simple\_Mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Mind)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087/1 "2014-05-09T23:19:42Z")

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Confusing title, sorry, I am looking for a way to take a picture with a digital camera of some text and have that converted as a text file or other file format and then use it like scanned text…  
Anybody can help?  
Thanks

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087/2 "2014-05-09T23:20:37Z")

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Google “OCR."

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**Author:** ![Henros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/59ef9b/32.png) [@Henros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henros)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087/3 "2014-05-11T11:15:42Z")

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As beowulff says, this process is Optical Character Recognition. Try this URL for ideas: [The 7 Best Free OCR Software Apps to Convert Images Into Text](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-5-free-ocr-software-tools-to-convert-your-images-into-text-nb/)

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**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087/4 "2014-05-11T14:04:09Z")

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OCR programs will have restrictions on the input file type, so make sure your camera can save in that form; e.g. might have to be a certain type of TIFF.

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**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/software-to-crop-jpeg-like-a-scanner/688087/5 "2014-05-11T21:26:49Z")

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There are many such apps on the iPhone platform. Two I have are CamScanner and FineScanner.