How to extract text from an image with the Google Assistant

At the end of last month Google removed CamScanner from the Play Store for containing malware. Quite an informative shock, since it was a tool with millions of downloads, being one of the most used for scan text from images. What other alternatives do we have now if we want to continue scanning documents with the mobile camera?

CamScanner had a lot of competition, yes, so the most immediate solution may be to take a look on the Play Store. But be careful, because we have recently discovered that Google Photos is already capable of recognizing words within the photos that we upload to the cloud, and it even allows us to search from the texts that appear in the photos.

What does this mean? Well, Google Lens, another of those super-useful tools from the Big G family, is also capable of doing the same, fulfilling a similar function to that previously offered by the now defunct CamScanner.

How to scan text from images with the Google Assistant

For some time now, Google Assistant has been expanding its set of functionalities more and more, and currently, it already includes tools natively, so useful, such as the aforementioned Google Lens.

Therefore, if we want to scan a text or remove the lyrics of a song that we have written down in a note, or extract the content of a letter written on paper, and much more, we can do it without installing any application on the mobile. We just have to open the Wizard and follow the following steps.

• The first thing will be to stop the sound capture. To do this, click on the colored dots that appear at the bottom of the screen.
• We will see how now 3 new buttons appear. Click on the Google Lens icon (the one that appears on the left).

• We select "Activate camera to use Lens" and grant the permissions required by the app.
• Now we only have to point the mobile camera at the text we want to capture. Lens will allow us do a search with the scanned text (magnifying glass icon), perform an instant translation (dictionary icon) or copy the text to the clipboard (sheet icon with text).

We have tried to translate a couple of texts into English and Basque, and the truth is that both the capture and the translation are quite well done. Already one of the most attractive features available in the Google Assistant for Android devices.