Do you have a reading disability and want to be able to easily read text on the go? Here are two apps that have built-in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and allow you to take a picture of text and have it read back to you-Prizmo and ClaroSpeak Plus. Both of these apps run on the Apple iOS mobile platform and are very inexpensive. In regards to text recognition accuracy, they are both fairly accurate; however, the results are not consistent with either app. I have captured some unique characteristics of each app below and have included a feature comparison chart here .
Prizmo-$9.99
- One button capture and read
- Audible countdown to picture capture
- Change reading order, add and delete sections
- Save as a readable PDF
- Scan multi-page documents
ClaroSpeak Plus-$6.99 or $1.99 if you already own ClaroSpeak
- Change color of text, background and highlight color
- Tells you the percentage of words that were not “OCR’d” successfully
- Read/Edit in Same Window-good for worksheets, tests
- Talking Word Processor
- Word prediction
- Save text as an audio file
Overall both of these apps are great for capturing and reading aloud text on the go; it just depends on your needs regarding which one will work best for you. In the future, I would like to see better instruction manuals for both apps. Customer Service, on the other hand, was very fast and helpful for both app companies! These apps and more are available on an iPad for loan from our IPAT equipment rental program 1-800-895-4728.
ClaroSpeak Plus and Prizmo can be more productive and accurate using a scanning stand accessory. A stand can hold your iPhone or iPad in a fixed position as well as a target document. The ScanJig stand has been recognized as a very good assistive tool. scanjig.com