Voice: OCR Document Reader

Category

Description of App

Hi! This is Shalin Shah — creator of Voice. I’m a senior studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Voice has been a project of mine since I was in high school, and I’ve been working hard to make it better over the last 6 years.

Voice was hand-crafted for people like you. It can help you quickly read items like product labels and magazine pages in your day-to-day. But you can also use it for more advanced reading like mail or books.

My goal with Voice was to create the most simple and intuitive interface to help you read things. Here are some features that I hope are helpful.

OCR:

Voice’s OCR engine is perhaps one of the best in the world. You no longer need to worry about low lighting and bad focus, Voice corrects it automatically and gives you pixel-perfect accuracy every time. Voice can even read scribbles and handwritten text with incredible accuracy.

Standard Photo Capture:

The most basic way to use Voice is by simply tapping the button labeled by VoiceOver as “Camera. Button” This will take a picture. Then simply tap the button labeled “Next. Button” and Voice will perform OCR on your image and read it aloud.

Voice Control:

Alternatively, you can control the app using your voice if you find that tapping buttons shake your camera. Simply say “capture” to snap a picture, and “read” to start processing the image.

Batch Mode:

Batch mode is enabled by default. To read more than one page, just keep taking photos using the “Camera. Button” or by saying the word “capture” many times. Voice will read all the documents one after another.

Scan Tone:

Good OCR detection does not depend on the corners of a document to be visible. But if corner detection is important to you, Scan Tone plays a tone when it sees all 4 corners visible. The tone gets louder or softer depending on the placement, tilt, and orientation of your phone relative to your document. A louder scan tone means better visibility of your document.

Real-Time Mode:

Voice also supports real-time scanning. Toggle this on, then simply hold your phone in front of any document with text and Voice will read it out loud in real-time. Voice also automatically turns on flash when it detects sub-par lighting and turns it off for objects that would glare.

Reading Voices & Languages:

Voice supports 47 languages and offers 180 reading voices. 52 voices are the standard iOS voices, and 128 of them are premium AI-generated voices with extremely fluent intonations. You can adjust your language, reading voice, and speaking rate in Settings.

Photo Library:

The photo library picker lets you pick multiple images at a time from any of your albums.

Offline Mode:

Voice now fully works without wifi. If privacy is a concern or you don’t care for that extra bit of OCR quality, then feel free to use Voice in offline mode. You can turn it on in settings.

Saving & Exporting:

Once your document has been scanned, it takes one tap to copy your detected OCR text to your clipboard, export it as an accessible PDF, export it as a Plain Text file, or simply export all the images you captured.

Importing:

Voice allows you to import both images and PDFs from other apps. It automatically detects the document format and performs OCR.

VoiceOver"

The entire app was crafted with VoiceOver in mind, so everything is fully accessible.

App Size:

Voice has only a 6.9-megabyte app size.

Pricing:

You get 20 free scans per month. You can use those scans in either Short Text Mode or Standard Capture Mode. Once those 20 scans are up, you must purchase the Elite plan for $9.99 per month or the Believer plan for $99.99 per year. You save $20 a year, or 17%, by upgrading to the Believer plan. We are committed to keeping Voice OCR open for scholars and others lacking financial stability. Fill out this short form to tell us about your situation at http://bit.ly/VoiceOCR.

Further Help:

Feel free to reach out to my personal email, [email protected], for any feedback.

Version

6.0

Free or Paid

Free With In-App Purchase

Apple Watch Support

No

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

14.3

Accessibility Comments

fully accessible, though the tutorial is a little hard to navigate, as instead of adjusting the page value you must tap twice on each page to make it adjust, then eventually on page 6 you get a continue button. Before then you have an unlabelled button on screen which doesn't do anything, but one you get past the tutorial its all fine.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

the developer welcomes feedback, he is a school student who is making this available for free but he is very interested in peoples comments and feedback on how to improve the app.

Recommendations

7 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by falcon wings 3 years 7 months ago

Options

Comments

By Rocker on Sunday, May 3, 2015 - 09:16

I am concerned about sensative content being transfrrerd to the net and would like to know more about that process.

By alex wallis on Sunday, May 3, 2015 - 09:16

would say common sense is key here, the developer has confirmed processing is done by some sort of google service, so would say if people are that concerned use something that does offline processing like knfb reader.

By Siobhan on Sunday, May 3, 2015 - 09:16

I remember a forum where I think the developer said he will at least take off the text to speech engine from the net, perhaps this deals with processing?

By HarmonicaPlayer on Sunday, May 3, 2015 - 09:16

just launched app and when got passed tutorial screen on ipod touch and hit continue app crashes when app launches every time. I am using ipod touch fifth generation. IOS 8.3

By Monica Rose on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - 09:16

I downloaded this app last night after listening to the AppleVis Extra. I can't get to the tutorial or any of the buttons. I read in the description about swiping and tapping twice on each page, but all I seem to get is an unlabeled button that does nothing when I double tap. Help is appreciated. Thanks bunches.

By Isaac Hebert (not verified) on Wednesday, June 3, 2015 - 09:16

Try to do a three finger swipe to the left to move between pages.
After you get to the last page there should be a alert coming up.

By burak on Monday, August 3, 2015 - 09:16

So I have got passed the tutorial, but the app acts like it has frozen when I launch it every single time. I am running iOS8.3. I have deleted the app for now.

By AnonyMouse on Thursday, September 3, 2015 - 09:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

What's New in Version 3.3

This Version:
- Now Voice can detect and read in over 30 languages!
- Most, if not all, of the VoiceOver incompatibilities have been fixed (including the annoying introduction at the beginning). So, Voice is fully compatible
with VoiceOver!
- Export your detected text! You can now export it as a pdf, png, or txt file, and you can send it to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Email, and many
more!
- Improved field of view report and document detection.
- iPhone also vibrates when four corners are detected.

- Made OCR processing faster.
- Better automatic photo capture.
- New bug spray invented to squash millions of bugs.
- Other various improvements.

By Deborah Armstrong on Thursday, September 3, 2015 - 09:16

So I can hold the phone above something and double-tap the take picture button, but I have no idea if it is seeing a page. I haven't got it to find any text yet, and even when it doesn't OCR anything, I get the reading screen with the buttons for play, previous and next page. Where's the field of view report? How can I figure out if it's going to take a pic of something it can actually OCR and when I'm in this reading screen, how do I return to the take picture screen?

By AnonyMouse on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - 09:16

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

CRAZY CRAZY UPDATES TO THE APP.

Voice was completely remade from the ground up, with the best and latest technology. The OCR quality is spectacular, even on completely distorted and badly focused photos. New voice control features introduced. You can simply say the words "Take Picture" and Voice will take pictures for you. Can give extremely accurate field of view reports when it detects a document in front of you. It works in over 30 major languages and gives you the most powerful OCR reading tools right in your pocket.

But don't take my word for it, give Voice a download and see for yourself!

By Karok on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - 09:16

hi is this better then, anonymoanonymouse, than scanner from Voice Dream? isn't "every app amazing, spectacular, amm-have" in this department?

By DMNagel on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - 09:16

Capture

Hey Will. I agree with @DMNagel. Try saying Capture. That should work unless you've denied permission to access your device's microphone. Let me know if it still doesn't work. Thank you for using the app.

By Maranatà on Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - 09:16

Good morning! Before buying the app I would like to know if it supports Italian. Thank you!