Gboard on Android will soon add a new built-in OCR scan text tool so you won't have to use Lens

Gboard on Android will soon add a new built-in OCR scan text tool so you won’t have to use Lens،

Google is testing a new feature in the latest beta version of Gboard for Android that lets you scan text using optical character recognition (OCR). Previously, you had to use Google Lens in the Camera app or search bar on Pixel devices to quickly access this feature.

As reported by Google News channel on Telegram And 9to5Google, the “Scan Text” feature is currently only available in the latest Gboard beta (13.06.04) and is not yet available by default for all beta users. However, based on initial usage from those who managed to enable the feature, the quality and accuracy of OCR appears to be the same as other Google products.

Image Source – Google News Channel on Telegram

To use this feature, you must first grant Gboard camera permission. Next, open the Gboard keyboard and tap the new “Analyze Text” tile. Take a photo of the text you want to scan and Gboard will highlight the recognized text. You can then select and insert the text into the input field.

The “Scan Text” feature sits alongside the translation and proofreading features in the Gboard toolbar. After tapping the “Scan Text” tile, you’ll see a square in the viewfinder that takes up the bottom half of your screen, where you can then tap the capture button to take a photo of the text you want to scan.

Once Gboard processes the photo, it will highlight the recognized text. You can tap to select an entire line of text or adjust the selection area. Once you are happy with the selection, press the “Insert” button to insert the text into the input field.

The “Scan Text” tool stays on screen after you insert something, so you can quickly make another selection. It’s faster than opening Google Lens, especially if you move the “Analyze Text” tile to the shortcuts row. I can definitely see this feature being extremely useful for multitasking as well.