Version and Developer Information
Who makes each app, how it is licensed, where new versions are published, and how updates work. Version numbers change often, so this page links to the release channels instead of listing numbers that would go out of date.
| App | Developer | License | Release channel | Updates | OCR engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PowerToys Text Extractor | Microsoft | MIT | GitHub releases, Microsoft Store | Built-in updater; frequent releases | Windows.Media.Ocr |
| Text Grab | Joseph Finney | MIT | GitHub releases, Microsoft Store | Store auto-update | Windows.Media.Ocr |
| Capture2Text | Christopher Brochtrup | GPL | SourceForge files | Manual (replace the folder) | Tesseract (bundled) |
| NAPS2 | Ben Olden-Cooligan | GPL | naps2.com/download, GitHub | Update check in the app | Tesseract |
| Tesseract OCR | Tesseract community; Windows builds by UB Mannheim | Apache 2.0 | UB Mannheim wiki | Manual reinstall | Tesseract LSTM |
| ABBYY FineReader PDF | ABBYY | Commercial | pdf.abbyy.com | Built-in updater | ABBYY proprietary |
Finding the installed version
- PowerToys: PowerToys Settings → General. The version is shown at the top.
- Text Grab: Settings → About.
- Capture2Text: Right-click the tray icon → About.
- NAPS2: Help (?) menu → About.
- Tesseract: run
tesseract --version. - Any app: Settings → Apps → Installed apps lists the version under each entry.
Two OCR engines
Most of these apps use one of two engines:
- Windows OCR (Windows.Media.Ocr) is built into Windows 10 and 11. It is fast and needs no extra downloads, but it only supports the languages you have installed on Windows. PowerToys and Text Grab use it.
- Tesseract is a separate engine that reads language data files (
.traineddata). It supports more than 100 languages and can be tuned. NAPS2, Capture2Text, and the Tesseract command-line tool use it.
If text is recognized poorly in one app, try an app that uses the other engine. Their results can differ a lot on the same image.
Verifying a download
Installers from Microsoft, ABBYY, and the Microsoft Store are digitally signed. To check a signature, right-click the file → Properties → Digital Signatures. For GitHub releases that publish checksums, compare the hash:
Get-FileHash .\installer.exe -Algorithm SHA256