Live Text OCR transfers text in photos to word processing

 

This is an old public domain book from some research I have been doing recently as an example. I took the photo above with my iPhone 13 Pro Max using iOS 15. In the past, this was the end of the process. I would have a photo of the page and then, if I wanted to quote the book, I would have to manually copy out the text. But wait, there is optical character recognition. I should be able to read this text so I don't have to spend some time manually copying the text into my word processor. There are a number of programs to do this but now, I can use my iPhone to read the text and then copy it directly into my iMac's memory and paste it into Microsoft Word. Really, all in one or two steps. 

Here is the pasted text from the image above:

their holdings were "jumped" by outsiders. Wilford has

been entirely vacated, but Heber still has residents.

Where Salt Was Secured

Salt for the early settlements of northern Arizona very

generally was secured from the salt lake of the Zuni, just

east of the New Mexican line, roughly 33 miles from St.

Johns.

As early as 1865, Sol Barth brought salt on pack

mules from this lake to points as far westward as Prescott.

In the records of a number of the Little Colorado settle-

ments are found references to where the brethren visited

a salt lake and came back with as much as two tons at a

load. This lake is of sacred character to the Zuni, which

at certain times of the year send parties of priests and

warriors to the lake, 45 miles south of the tribal village.

There is elaborate ceremonial before salt is collected. Un-

doubtedly the lake was known to prehistoric peoples, for

salt, probably obtained at this point, has been found in

diff ruins in southern Colorado, 200 miles from the source

of supply. The Zuni even had a special goddess, Mawe,

genius of the sacred salt lake, or "Salt Mother," to whom

offerings were made at the lake. Warren K. Follett, in 1878,

told that the lake lies 300 feet lower than the general sur-

face of the country.

The salt forms within the water, in

layers of from three to four inches thick, and is of remark-

able purity.

The Hopi secured salt from a ledge in the Grand Canyon,

below the mouth of the Little Colorado, about eighty miles

northwest of their villages. At the point of mining, sacrifices

were made before shrines of a goddess of salt and a god of

war. The place has had description by Dr. Geo. Wharton

James, whose knowledge of the gorge is most comprehen-

sive.

On the upper Verde and in Tonto Creek Valley are salt

deposits, though very impure. Upper Salt River has a

small deposit of very good sodium chloride, which was mined

mainly for the mills of Globe, in the seventies. The Verde

I do need to format the text but I would have to do that as I typed it in anyway. I do not have to copy out text in a book every again. 

Will it read handwriting? Yes, as long as it is fairly legible. Here is a link to the instructions about how this works: "Hands-on: Here’s how iPhone’s Live Text OCR works in iOS 15." I always have my phone next to my computer but now I will be using it to transfer quotes into my research. Always attribute any quote with a citation, please. 

Imagine that you are doing research in a library and find a book with some information you would like to copy. You take a pile of photos and dread transcribing them. Here you go. A fast way to get the text from every image.