Home » Misc » Pre k letter recognition

Pre k letter recognition


Alphabet Letter Identification Activities - PreKinders

Here are 15 fun, active, hands-on alphabet letter identification activities for Pre-K, Preschool, and Kindergarten.

You can find many more Alphabet Activities here.

Letter Basketball

This is one of my prekinders favorite letter identification activities every year. To prepare this game, I cut copy paper or newsprint paper in half, and write letters on several pieces. I make enough papers for each child, plus one or two extra. I make a line with masking tape on the floor and place the trash can about 4 feet away. As each child has a turn, I tell them which letter to find. They pick up the letter, crumble the paper into a ball, and stand on the tape to toss it into the trash can. If they miss, they get as many chances as needed to get the “ball” in the basket and can move closer if needed. We always cheer when they make it in the basket! This game could also be played with alphabet bean bags if you have them.

Candy Letter Match

Write pairs of letters on sticker dots and place them on the bottom of several Hershey’s Kisses. For my Pre-K kids, I usually put out about 5-10 pairs of letters at a time. Children take turns lifting two Kisses at a time. If the letters match, they keep those Kisses. If they do not match, they have to put them back. At the end of the game, all of the Kisses are put in the middle of the table, and children can choose about 3 pieces to eat. We use this game to practice matching uppercase to uppercase letters, lowercase to lowercase, or uppercase to lowercase, depending on what we are working on.

Alpha-Band

Label each rhythm instrument with a letter. An easy way to make instruments is to put rice inside a plastic Easter egg, and hot glue it closed. We sing the traditional Alphabet Song, or another alphabet song, such as Dr. Jean’s “The Alphabet’s in My Mouth” or “Who Let the Letters Out”, or Jack Hartmann’s “Animal Alphabet Cheer”. Children shake their letter shakers only when they hear their letter called out in the song.

Letter Hunt

Children choose any 10 letters from the letter manipulatives (use foam letters, magnetic letters, letter tiles or other letter manipulatives). Go through a stack of shuffled letter cards, calling out each letter to the children. As the letters are called out, children look to see if they have that letter, and if they do, the letter is put back in the letter basket. We see who is first to clear all of their letters. It’s very similar to a bingo game. In Pre-K, we play until everyone has cleared all of their letters because our goal is learning letters, not competition with the little ones.
*To teach letter sounds: Call out a word and have children identify the first letter of the word.

ABC Sorting Tray

I found this divided tray in a kitchen store. I labeled each section by writing a letter on a sticker dot and placing the matching foam letters in each section of the tray. I placed the letters in a bowl and children sorted and matched the letters into the sections of the tray. When I want to change out the letters in the tray, I just remove the sticker dots and add new ones. I usually try to use letters that are similar, so that children are challenged and use visual discrimination skills to find the differences in the letters. For example, I might use Q, O, D, C, and G since those letters are similar in shape, or I, T, J, or W, V, U.

ABC Sorting Box

Label a craft storage box with letter stickers. Children sort letter manipulatives into the sections of the box. These are magnetic letter tiles in the picture.

Letter Matching Uppercase to Uppercase

For this activity, each child chooses a colored letter box. Children work in pairs to match the letters that are the same. These letters came from a set of foam letters that are sadly no longer available from Lakeshore (bring them back, Lakeshore!) However, you could do the same activity by using handmade cards with the letters written in two different colors. You might also consider using paint chips (paint sample cards) in two different colors and making A-Z sets in the two different colors by writing on the cards with a black marker.

Letter Matching Uppercase to Lowercase

Children work in pairs to match the uppercase and lowercase foam or magnetic letters that are the same. You could also use purchased or handmade letter tiles.

Stamping Game

Write about ten letters on a piece of paper for each child. Put the same ten letters in a bowl or bag, and pass it around the table. Each child has a turn to pull a letter out of the bowl or bag, and announce the letter to the group. Children find the letter on their paper and stamp it out with a rubber stamp.
Other ways we play this game:

  • I put every letter of the alphabet in the bowl or bag and children determine if the letter is on their paper or not.
  • I place small objects in the bowl and children identify the beginning letter (e.g. B for ball).

Alphabet Bingo

Each child looks for the letter the teacher calls out on their bingo card. If they have it, they cover it. Play until a card is full.

Alphabet Soup

Children take turns scooping up a letter from a bowl with a spoon or soup ladle. The child identifies the letter, and walks around the room searching for the letter somewhere in the classroom.
*To teach letter sounds: Children search for an object in the room that begins with that letter.

Letter Clips

Children squeeze the clothespins and clip them to the sides of the box. I wrote letters on dot stickers and placed the dot stickers around the sides of the boxes. I wrote letters on the clothespins so the children would match the letters on the clothespins to the letters on the boxes. This is similar to activities where children clip clothespins to a paper plate or cardstock circle; however, in my experience, those were flimsy and awkward to use, which is why I like the box better. Any sturdy box could be used (shoe box, postal box). The boxes in this picture were stacking gift boxes that held chocolate covered nuts (a Christmas gift), and they worked out perfectly. (By the way, Sam’s Club has these chocolate covered nuts in the same stacking boxes every year, and they are awesome!)

Memory Game

Place about three letter manipulatives on a tray, cover them with a cloth, and take one away. When the letters are uncovered, children guess which letter is missing. Children find the letter that is missing among their own set of letter manipulatives. If the children are very interested in writing, they can write the letter that is missing on a dry erase lap board. To increase the difficulty of this game, try using 4 or 5 letters. Another options is to place three letters on the tray, cover them, and ask the children to recall all three letters that were on the tray.

Alphabet Path Games

I made these path games using stickers bought in a craft store (scrapbooking section), and I made individual mats with about 10 letters on them. Each child gets a mat, a game piece, and some plastic chips to cover the letters on their mat. They roll the dice and count out the spaces to move their game piece. If their game piece lands on a letter that is on the mat, they cover that letter with a chip. Play continues until they have covered every letter.
Other ways we use the path games:

  • Children identify the letter they land on, then find that letter somewhere in the classroom.
  • Children find an object in the classroom that begins with that letter’s sound.

You’ll also like these resources…

How to Teach Your Preschooler Letter Recognition Through Play

  • Share
  • Email

Helping your preschooler to gain letter recognition skills does not need to feel like “work!”

Learning through play in a fun, stress-free, and positive manner is always the best way. 

What Letter Recognition Means

Learning letter recognition skills involves several different hands-on components. 

Children need to distinguish the shapes of letters from each other (visually recognize them) and be able to point to and state the letter names, as well as the sounds made by each letter.

In addition, they must learn to form letters and write them. 

These skills do not all need to be accomplished during the preschool years and in fact, preschoolers are not yet developmentally ready to learn to read and write.  

By simply exposing your child in a fun way, you will begin the process of laying down foundational pre-reading and writing skills.

When Should a Child Recognize Letters of the Alphabet?

Although you can read about average ages when kids gain alphabet skills, those often vary widely. 

Just as children learn to walk and talk at different ages, the same is true for recognizing letters of the alphabet. 

They each learn at their own pace, depending on many factors. 

How to Build Skills to Prepare Your Child for Letter Recognition

Through fun play activities, parents can help their children gain various developmental skills that prepare preschoolers for letter recognition. 

Those types of skills include visual perception, memory, and auditory perception.

What this means is that learning the letters does not in fact start with exposure to the actual letters, but rather to play activities that develop these skills.

Visual Perception

Visual perception refers to your child’s brain making sense of what their eyes are seeing, such as details and shapes (shape recognition). 

These skills also include visual-motor and eye-hand coordination. 

Helpful kinds of activities include:

  • those that exercise the large muscles (such as throwing/catching)
  • small motor activities (like lacing)
  • visual perception (such as building puzzles)
  • and limiting screen time, which has limitations related to visual perception skills.

Memory

Memory development relates to storing and using information in the brain. 

Stress-free activities to enhance these skills include:

  • simple card games
  • Memory card games (get your own by downloading the FREE set of printables at the end of the post)
  • talking about fun memories
  • story visualization
  • reading and talking about books
  • Visual memory games, like picture bingo
  • Auditory memory games 

Auditory Perception

Auditory perception includes the brain’s ability to distinguish sounds and words, which is important for learning the sounds of letters.  

These are the kind of activities that can support this skill:

  • listening to music
  • distinguishing animal sounds
  • clapping out copied rhythm patterns 

[source]

How do I Teach My Child Letter Recognition?

Even before your child shows an interest in print, 

  • reading to them
  • sharing poems and nursery rhymes
  • talking to them
  • telling stories
  • and singing songs to or with them

are all meaningful and fun activities that set the stage for letter recognition. 

Keep it fresh, keep it new, and be willing to return to their favourite activities when asked. 

As your child shows a growing interest in print, make it available to them whenever possible.

Instead of keeping that book to yourself as you read to them, show children the words, running your fingers over them as you read. Let kids turn the pages of books. 

Have books available in the home to which kids have constant access.  

So many things around the house contain words, like packages, lists, letters, emails, screens, magazines, and greeting cards. 

Point and touch as you read, showing children that you are using words daily, expressing how much can be learned through their use. 

Write in front of your kids for all different purposes, at least sometimes spelling aloud. 

Make drawing and writing tools and surfaces available to your child at all times, indoors and out. 

Don’t just offer the traditional papers and crayons – include:

  • Drawing with sticks in the sand
  • Writing on clay or playdough
  • Drawing on shower and bath walls with soap 

Should I Teach the Letters in a Specific Order?

Instead of teaching letters in any special, prescribed order, focus on those that are used most often and in order of importance for your child. 

They typically want to know about the letters:

  • in their names
  • in “MOM” and “DAD”
  • in a pet’s name
  • environmental print (like on STOP or WALK signs)
  • and even outstanding words from a favourite storybook

Think about and pay attention to those letters and words that appear to be interesting to your kids, using them as the foundation to build upon.

[source]

Is it Better to Teach Upper or Lowercase Letters First?

For preschoolers, the field of occupational therapy makes a good case for beginning with capitals in handwriting letter formation. 

They are formed from larger lines and curves that avoid retracing and changing directions, while still teaching top to bottom strokes. 

If children try to form letters for which their visual-motor skills are not prepared, they sometimes build poor habits that can be difficult to break later on. 

Of course, your child may be familiar with lowercase letters, seeing them in many print formats, and gradually learning to identify them. 

When their motor skills are ready, they typically make an easy switch to including them along with uppercase when they write. 

 [source] 

Letter Recognition Activities and Games for Preschoolers

Here are some fun ways to teach your preschooler recognition through play. 

1. Point Out Environmental Print

Print is all around us.  

Point out, talk about and stress the sounds of words on signs (such as favourite restaurants and traffic/street signs), cereal or other product boxes/labels, and familiar logos. 

2. Share Rhyming Books

Read favourite rhyming books to your child, accentuating the rhyme and rhythm. 

Afterwards, play an oral game of stating some rhyming words from the story and adding a new rhyming word of your own. 

Challenge your child to come up with more words that rhyme. Either real or pretend “words” are okay, as it is the rhyming factor that counts. 

3. Letter Hunt

Point out and talk about the letters in your child’s name, making them clearly visible in print.

Show them how you find one of those same letters in a magazine or newspaper and cut out as a rather square piece (not necessarily trying to cut out close to the letter’s edges). 

Challenge them to find other letters from their name in print and cut those out, as well. 

After all the letters have been found, they can arrange them in the correct order for their name.  

These may be kept in a small bag for future use or glued onto a coloured sheet of paper to post on the fridge or in your child’s room. 

Instead of cutting, another option is to use different colours of highlighters to mark various letters found in print. 

4. Play with Plastic/Wooden Letters

Letters may be sorted and put into piles in different ways: 

  • those with curves
  • letters with straight lines
  • those from your child’s name or other important words
  • letters they can name
  • and those for which they can say the sounds

Letters with magnets may be used on the fridge or on a magnet board for sorting purposes.

5. Bake Letters

Use bread or pretzel dough to form letters with your child, then bake them to be eaten later.

While you work, talk about the letter names, sounds, and easy words (like their names) that may be formed. 

Special baking tins and cookie cutters may be purchased to bake letters. You can also bake oblong cakes and cut into large letter shapes, as well.

6. Form Letters with Familiar Materials

Offer kids various types and colours of pasta to form letters on flat backgrounds, either to glue into place or to leave loose and rearrange into different letters. 

Other materials to explore might include:

  • dry breakfast cereals
  • buttons or pennies
  • cotton balls
  • dried beans
  • mini-marshmallows
  • toothpicks
  • rice
  • Yarn

7. Form Letters with Unusual Materials

Using a tabletop or oblong baking pan with low sides, spread shaving cream or pudding for your child to trace letters into with their fingers. 

The same may be done with sand (or moved outside), to trace in with fingers or safe “sticks,” like pencils, dowels, or rulers. 

8. Go on a Scavenger Hunt

Have children choose a letter card or cutout. Talk about how the letter looks and sounds. 

Depending on your child’s level of development, challenge them to find things around the house that have that letter printed on them OR objects that begin with that letter’s sound.  

9. Fish for Letters

Magnetic letter fishing games may be purchased or made with paper, magnets, paperclips, dowels, and string. 

Name or pick a letter, focusing on how it looks and/or sounds. Kids then “fish” for the matching letters from the “pond.” 

They can also just fish for a random letter and then name it once it is “caught.” 

You can also use a version of this game later on, when children are learning to match upper and lowercase letters.

10. Play Musical Chairs with Letters

Add paper plates with letters or letters cut from cardboard right onto the chairs or onto the floor beneath. 

Children walk around the circle and find a place to sit when the music stops. They each then name the letter on their chair or floor directly beneath.

11. Find Letters on a Keyboard

Make use of an old computer keyboard or typewriter. Your child names the letters as they touch the keys. 

They can also find them to press as you say the names, sounds, or hold up cards, one letter at a time.  

12. Spray or Write Letters Outdoors

Offer spray bottles with water for children to spray letters on driveways, sidewalks, or even the side of your house. 

Another option is to use sidewalk chalk to write letters on the driveway, patio, or basketball court. 

13. Form Letters with Bendable Materials

Get your child to bend pipe cleaners, chenille stems, or products like Wikki Stix (string covered in wax) to form letters. 

Children often like to make multiple letters and form words, as well.

14. Find the Hidden Letters

“Bury” plastic or wooden letters in a sand table or sand box. Ask your child to name the letters as they are discovered. 

Other materials may be used as alternates in sand tables or large trays, such as coloured rice, pasta, dried beans, or bird seed. 

All of these ideas can help to strengthen your child’s early literacy skills. 

Pay attention to where they stand in their development and keep raising the bar just a bit higher, while still returning to those games and activities in which they feel a high measure of success! 

This is the key to learning.

Get FREE access to Printable Puzzles, Stories, Activity Packs and more!

Join Empowered Parents + and you’ll receive a downloadable set of printable puzzles, games and short stories, as well as the Learning Through Play Activity Pack which includes an entire year of activities for 3 to 6-year-olds.
Access is free forever.

Signing up for a free Grow account is fast and easy and will allow you to bookmark articles to read later, on this website as well as many websites worldwide that use Grow.

  • Share
  • Email

What is optical character recognition? — AWS

What is OCR?

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of converting an image of text into a machine-readable text format. For example, when scanning a letterhead or receipt, the computer saves the scan as an image file. A text editor cannot be used to edit, search, or count words in an image file. OCR helps convert an image into a text document, the content of which is stored as text data.

Why is OCR important?

Most work processes are related to obtaining information from printed publications. Any business process involves forms, invoices, scanned legal documents and contracts printed on paper. Such large volumes of paperwork require a lot of time and space to store and process. While paperless workflow is the way forward, scanning a document to an image presents some challenges. This process requires manual intervention and can be tedious and slow.

Digitizing document content creates image files with text hidden in them. Word processing programs cannot process text in images. OCR solves this problem by converting the image into text data that can be parsed by office software. This data can then be used for analytics, operations optimization, process automation, and performance improvement.

How does OCR work?

OCR technology includes the following steps:

Image acquisition

The scanner reads documents and converts them to binary data. The OCR software analyzes the scanned image and classifies light areas as background and dark areas as text.

Preprocessing

To prepare text for recognition, OCR software cleans up the image and removes error areas. The following cleaning methods are used:

  • Straighten and deskew the scanned document for easier recognition.
  • Smoothes out contrast or blemishes in a digital image and smooths out the edge effects of text images.
  • Erases frames and lines on a scanned image.
  • Font recognition for multilingual OCR technology

OCR

There are two main types of OCR algorithms or software processes that OCR software uses for OCR: pattern matching and feature extraction.

Pattern matching

Pattern matching works by extracting an image of a character, called a glyph, and comparing it to a similar glyph stored in memory. Image recognition will only occur if the font and scale of the stored glyph matches the font and scale of the scanned glyph. This method is effective when working with scans of documents typed in a known font.

Feature Extraction

Feature Extraction breaks or decomposes glyphs into features such as lines, closed paths, line direction, and line intersections. The features are then used to find the best or closest match among the various stored glyphs.

Finishing

After analysis, the system converts the extracted text data into a computer file. Some OCR systems can create annotated PDFs that include both the previous and next versions of the scanned document.

What types of OCR are there?

Data scientists classify different kinds of OCR technologies based on their use and application. The following are just a few examples:

Simple OCR programs

The simple OCR engine uses many different stored font patterns and text images as templates. OCR software uses pattern matching algorithms to compare images of text character by character against an internal database. The approach in which the system matches text word by word is called optical word recognition. It has its limitations as there is an almost unlimited number of fonts and handwriting styles and every single type cannot be accounted for and stored in the database.

Intelligent Character Recognition

Modern OCR systems use Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) technology to read text just like a human. They use advanced machine learning techniques for human reading skills. A machine learning system called a neural network analyzes text at many levels by repeatedly processing the image. It looks for various image attributes (curves, lines, intersections, and loops) and combines the results of various levels of analysis to arrive at the final result. Even though ICR processes images character by character, the process does not take much time, and the results are obtained in a matter of seconds.

Intelligent Word Recognition

Intelligent Word Recognition systems work on the same principle as ICR, but process images of whole words without first extracting the characters in the image.

OCR

OCR allows you to identify logos, watermarks, and other designations in your document.

What are the main benefits of OCR?

Data scientists classify different kinds of OCR technologies based on their use and application. Below are just a few examples:

Simple OCR programs

The simple OCR engine uses many different stored font patterns and text images as templates. OCR software uses pattern matching algorithms to compare images of text character by character against an internal database. The approach in which the system matches text word by word is called optical word recognition. It has its limitations as there is an almost unlimited number of fonts and handwriting styles and every single type cannot be accounted for and stored in the database.

Intelligent Character Recognition

Modern OCR systems use Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) technology to read text just like a human. They use advanced machine learning techniques for human reading skills. A machine learning system called a neural network analyzes text at many levels by repeatedly processing the image. It looks for various image attributes (curves, lines, intersections, and loops) and combines the results of various levels of analysis to arrive at the final result. Even though ICR processes images character by character, the process does not take much time, and the results are obtained in a matter of seconds.

Intelligent Word Recognition

Intelligent Word Recognition systems work on the same principle as ICR, but process images of whole words without first extracting the characters in the image.

OCR

OCR allows you to identify logos, watermarks, and other designations in your document.

What are the main benefits of OCR?

The main advantages of OCR technology are listed below:

Searchable text

Businesses can transform existing and new documents into a fully searchable knowledge base. Software for automatic processing of text base allows you to improve the knowledge base of the enterprise.

Work efficiency

OCR software improves work efficiency by automatically integrating workflow and digital workflows. Here are some examples of what OCR software can do:

  • Scanning of manually completed forms for automated review, review, editing and analysis. This approach reduces the time of manual processing of documents and data entry.
  • Finding the required documents using a quick search for a term in the database, instead of manually sorting through the files in the box.
  • Convert handwritten notes to editable text and documents.

Artificial intelligence solutions

OCR is often a component of other AI solutions that enterprises may implement. For example, OCR can be used to scan and recognize license plates and road signs in self-driving cars, identify brand logos in social media posts, or identify product packaging in promotional images. These AI technologies help businesses make better marketing and operational decisions that reduce costs and improve the customer experience.

What is OCR used for?

Some common use cases for OCR across industries are listed below:

Banking

The banking industry uses OCR to process and validate loan documents, deposit checks, and other financial transactions. Such verification allowed to increase the effectiveness of the fight against fraud and strengthen the security of transactions. For example, BlueVine, a financial technology company that provides financing to small and medium-sized businesses, used Amazon Textract, an OCR cloud service, to develop a product that allows small businesses in the United States to quickly access Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans under COVID-19 stimulus package. Amazon Textract automatically processed and analyzed tens of thousands of PPP forms per day, enabling BlueVine to help several thousand businesses raise funds and save more than 400,000 jobs.

Healthcare

In the healthcare system, OCR is used to process patient records, including treatments, tests, hospital records, and insurance payments. OCR helps streamline workflow, reduce manual work in hospitals, and keep records up-to-date. For example, the nib Group provides health insurance to more than 1 million Australians and receives thousands of health claims every day. The company's customers can take a photo of their medical bill and submit it via the nib mobile app. Amazon Textract automatically processes these images, allowing the company to review applications much faster.

Logistics

Logistics companies use OCR to more efficiently track package labels, invoices, receipts and other documents. For example, Foresight Group uses Amazon Textract to automate invoice processing in SAP. Entering such documents manually was time-consuming and error-prone as Foresight employees had to enter data into multiple accounting systems. With Amazon Textract, Foresight's software has become more accurate in reading characters across a variety of media and has improved the efficiency of the company's business.

How can AWS help with OCR?

AWS offers two services that can help you implement OCR in your business:

Amazon Textract is a machine learning (ML) service that uses OCR to automatically extract printed and handwritten text and data from scanned documents (such as PDFs) . The service allows you to quickly read thousands of different documents of various media and formats. After extracting information from documents, Amazon Textract assigns a level of confidence, which enables you to make informed decisions about how to use the results.

Amazon Rekognition can analyze millions of images and videos in minutes and augment human visual inspection tasks with artificial intelligence. You can use the Amazon Rekognition API to extract text from images and videos. It has the ability to recognize garbled and warped text from road sign images and videos, social media posts, and product packaging.

Create an AWS account and get started with OCR technology today.

OCR - Optical Character Recognition - Azure Cognitive Services

  • Article
  • Reading takes 3 minutes

Text recognition or optical character recognition is also called text recognition or text extraction. Machine learning-based text recognition techniques extract printed or handwritten text from images such as posters, street signs, and product stickers, as well as from documents such as articles, reports, forms, and invoices. Text is usually extracted as words, text lines and paragraphs or text blocks, which provides access to a digital version of the scanned text. This eliminates or greatly reduces the need for manual data entry.

Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) uses OCR as its underlying technology to further extract structure, relationships, key-values, entities, and other document-centric insights using an advanced machine learning-based artificial intelligence service such as as Document Recognizer. The Document Recognizer includes a document-optimized version of Read as its OCR engine, delegating to other models to obtain higher-level insights. If you are extracting text from scanned and digital documents, use Document Recognizer OCR Reader.

OCR Engine

Microsoft Reader OCR Engine consists of several advanced machine learning models that support global languages. This allows them to extract printed and handwritten text, including mixed languages ​​and writing styles. Read is available as a cloud service and a local container for deployment flexibility. It is also available in the latest preview as a synchronous API for select non-document scenarios with performance improvements that make it easier to implement the user interface with OCR.

Warning

Computer Vision Operations The legacy ocr and RecognizeText operations are no longer supported and should not be used.

OCR releases (read)

Important!

Select the Read edition that best suits your requirements.

Input Examples Read issue Advantage
Images : general, in-the-wild images stickers, street signs and posters Computer Vision 4.0 pre-release Optimized for general non-document images with a performance-enhancing synchronous API that makes it easier to implement OCR in user interaction scenarios.
Documents : digital and scanned, including images books, articles and reports Document Recognizer Optimized for scanned and digital documents with an asynchronous API to automate intelligent document processing on a large scale.

About Computer Vision 3.2 GA

Looking for the latest Computer Vision 3.2 ga read? Please note that all future Reader OCR enhancements will be part of the two new services listed above. There will be no further updates to Computer Vision version 3.2. To continue, take a look at the Computer Vision 3.2 Overview and Quick Start Guide.

Using OCR

Try OCR with Vision Studio. Then click on one of the links to the Read edition in the following sections that best suits your needs.

Try Vision Studio

Supported OCR Languages ​​

Both versions of Reader available today in Computer Vision support multiple languages ​​for printed and handwritten text. Text recognition for printed text includes support for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, and other international languages ​​using Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Devanagari. Text recognition for handwriting supports English, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

See the complete list of languages ​​supported by OCR.

Generic OCR features

The OCR reading model is available in Computer Vision and Document Recognizer with common base capabilities when optimized for appropriate scenarios. The following list contains general features:

  • Extract printed and handwritten text in supported languages ​​
  • Pages, text lines and words with location and validity score
  • Mixed language support, mixed mode (printing and handwriting)
  • Feature available as Distroless Docker container for local deployment

Using cloud-based OCR APIs or deploying on-premises

Cloud-based APIs are the preferred option for most customers due to ease of integration and fast performance. Azure and Computer Vision provide scale, performance, data security, and compliance so you can focus on serving your customers.

For local deployment, the Read Docker container (Preview) allows you to deploy the publicly available Computer Vision OCR 3.2 capabilities in your own local environment. Containers meet specific security and data management requirements.

OCR Data Privacy and Security

As with all other Cognitive Services, developers using the Computer Vision API should be aware of Microsoft's policy regarding client data. For more information, see the About Cognitive Services page of the Microsoft Trust Center.

What to do next