Gboard will soon let you use your phone’s camera to quickly insert text

Gboard — Google’s smartphone keyboard app — is rolling out a helpful new feature that makes it easier to insert text using your smartphone’s camera. The latest version of the keyboard app adds support for a new “Scan Text” mode, which uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to recognize text and enter it into text fields. Similar scanning and inserting text capabilities are available on iPhone models running iOS 15.4 or later.

An image of the feature shared by Mishaal Rahman on X (formerly Twitter) shows how the new Gboard feature works. Using your smartphone’s rear camera, Google’s Keyboard app lets you take an image of text (be it a document, a screen, or an object with text), then use OCR technology to extract the text and insert it into your current app .

For this feature to work, you need to update the Gboard app on your Android phone to version 13.9, which is currently in beta. According to Rahman, users claim the feature is available now, but Gadgets 360 staff wasn’t able to try it out on multiple Android smartphones, so you may have to wait until the company officially announces the feature.

when. . .when Scan text This feature is available on your smartphone and it should be listed with other features such as translate, sticker, one handand theme. The keyboard will prompt you to grant it permission to access the camera, after which you can start using the feature.

You can point your phone’s camera at some text and tap the capture button once it’s inside the half-screen viewfinder. You can then select the text recognized using OCR and insert it into the current application – the image will be deleted after the text is inserted. You can also move it to the toolbar at the top of the keyboard if you plan to use it frequently.

Two years ago, Apple introduced a similar feature in iOS 15.4 that allowed users to add text to text fields in the Notes app and other apps by pointing their phone at it. It allows users to automatically select text using the iPhone camera (without capturing an image) and displays the text to be inserted as it updates in real time.

If the feature isn’t already enabled on your smartphone, you can also open the Google Lens app and point your camera at some text to extract the text, copy and paste it into another app. Adding the feature to Gboard will simplify this process, eliminating the need to open the Lens app.