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Mobile Scanning Apps For Ocr

  • April 10, 2026

A process that allows users to have documents that weren’t originally detectable or considered flat, now be editable for features such as highlighting, note-taking, and Text-to-Speech. Learn more on OCR.

With the need of these features during remote learning, we’ve composed a list for all of CUNY to take advantage of. Some of these solutions strictly pertain to CUNY Faculty.

<table width="1325" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1">
Recommended list of Optical Character Recognition applications for Android, iPhone, iPad, and browsers.
	<tr class="ocrTable">
            <th width="320" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Application Name</strong>
                </p>
            </th>
            <th width="306" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Features</strong>
                </p>
            </th>
            <th width="312" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>For who?</strong>
                </p>
            </th>
            <th width="300" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>License Type</strong>
                </p>
            </th>
            <th width="296" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Platforms</strong>
                </p>
            </th>
        </tr>
	
	</thead>
			
	<tbody>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
		<td width=" ">
			<span style="text-align:center;">
				<img  src="http://cats.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/MS_Office_Lens_Logo2.jpg" width="120" height="71" alt=""><br>
				<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-office-lens-pdf-scan/id975925059">
				Office Lens</a>
				</span>
			</td>
    	<td width=" " style="text-align: left;">
			<ul style="font-weight:bold;">
				<li>Convert to PDF</li>
				<li>Immersive Reader</li>
				<li>Image pre-processing</li>
				<li>ID scanning</li>
				<li> text editor</li>
				<li>camera scanner</li>
				<li>Formats supported: PNG, JPEG,PDF</li>
		  </ul>

			</td>
    	<td width=" " style="text-align: left;">
      <p>
      <strong>Faculty/Staff/Students – </strong>
      All CUNY Faculty, Staff, and Students can get access to the premium version
     by using your CUNYFirst login. This license is provided by the Microsoft 365 CUNY license.
      </p>
		</td>
    <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
        <p>
            <strong>Free and Paid </strong>
           </p>

    </td>
    <td width="296" valign="top">
        <p>
            <strong>Android, iPhone and Windows desktops. </strong>
        </p>
    </td>


		</tr>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
            <td width="257" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        <img src="http://cats.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/Adobe_scan.png" alt="" width="100" height="71" border="0">
                    </strong>
                </p>
                <p>
                    
                        <a href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/mobile/scanner-app.html">
                            Adobe Scan
                        </a>
                   
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Camera scanner</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Color contrast changer</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Manual and auto cropping</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Open files from your local phone</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Formats supported: PNG, JPEG,PDF</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
               
                        <strong><p>Faculty/Staff – </strong>
                        This is available for all CUNY faculty and
                            staff that have created an Adobe account with
                            their campus. Please contact your IT department
                            for information on accessing a license.
							
							<br>
                            <strong>
					          Student -  </strong> free version available with limited feature access.
                  		   </p>                             
                        
             </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free and Paid </strong>
                   </p>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="296" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Android, iPhone</strong>
                </p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
            <td width="257" valign="top" style="text-align:center;">
                
                   
                        <img src="http://cats.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/TextFairy-Copy.png" alt="" width="125" height="100" border="0">
                                      
                <p>
                     <a href="http://cats.cuny.edu/text-fairy/">
                            Text Fairy
                        </a>
                   </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Camera scanner</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Text-to-Speech</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Convert OCR to text</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Google Translate</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Export to PDF </strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Open files from your local phone</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Formats supported: PNG, JPEG,PDF</strong>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Students, Faculty, and Staff.</strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free</strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="296" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>Android</strong>
                </p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
            <td width="257" valign="top">
                <p>
                   
                        <img src="http://cats.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/ABBY_Finescanner.jpg" width="77" height="77" border="0">
                    
                </p>
                <p>
                    
                        <a href="https://www.abbyy.com/products/mobile/finescanner-ai/en/">
                            ABBYY FineScanner AI
                        </a>
                    
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Camera scanner</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Open files from your local phone</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Formats supported: PNG, JPEG,PDF</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        Students, Faculty, and Staff</strong>
                    <strong></strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free and Paid</strong>
                    <strong></strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="296" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Android, iPhone</strong>
                    <strong></strong>
                </p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
            <td width="257" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        <img src="http://cats.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/camscanner-logo.png" alt="A picture containing shirt

Description automatically generated" width=“98” height=“95” border=“0”>

                        <a href="https://www.camscanner.com/">
                            CamScanner
                        </a>
                  
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;" >
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Camera scanner</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Convert OCR to text</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Open files from your local phone</strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>
                            Sync from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box
                        </strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Formats supported: PNG, JPEG,PDF</strong>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        Students,Faculty,and Staff.
                    </strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free - </strong>limited feature access<br> <strong>Paid -</strong> monthly/yearly subscription. 10GB cloud storage, and more. <br>

Visit Camscanner pricing

Android, iOS, iPad

                        <a href="https://ocr.space/copyfish/#download">
                            Copyfish - Free OCR Software
                        </a>
                   
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <ul>
                    <li>
                        <strong>OCR images, videos from the web</strong>
                        <strong></strong>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <strong>Desktop OCR screenshot available - extra software required</strong>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        Students ,Faculty, Staff.
                    </strong>
                    
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free -</strong> primary features available<br><strong> Paid -</strong> Pro features like Google Translate and better OCR<br>
          <a href="https://ocr.space/copyfish/#pro">Visit Copyfish Pricing</a>          <strong></strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="296" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Browser extension- </strong>
                    Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge
                </p>
                <p>
                    <strong>Desktop – </strong>
                    Windows, Mac, Linux
                </p>
            </td>
        </tr>
        <tr class="ocrTable">
            <td width="257" valign="top">
                <p>
                    <strong>
                        <a href="https://ocr.space/">OCRSpace</a>
                    </strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="306" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Upload supports PDF,PNG,JPG</strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="312" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Students, Faculty, Staff </strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="154" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Free and Paid </strong>
                </p>
            </td>
            <td width="296" valign="top" style="text-align: left;">
                <p>
                    <strong>Website - </strong>
                    Supports all browsers
                </p>
            </td>
        </tr>
      
    </tbody>
</table>

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