Prizmo Review: Excellent Desktop OCR Tool For Macs

If you need to use OCR Software on your Mac, then Prizmo has probably caught your attention.

Prizmo is one of the few Mac desktop apps that specializes in extracting text from documents and images.

In this review, we’ll have a look at what makes Prizmo one of the best OCR apps we’ve used, including for those tricky handwritten letters.

What is Prizmo?

Prizmo is an all-in-one scanning and OCR solution designed for macOS and iOS users.

Developed by Creaceed, it aims to provide a user-friendly but powerful way to extract text from images, turn handwritten text into printable, editable text and even translate text into other languages.

With support for multiple languages, formats, and a Mac desktop app, Prizmo is one of the most popular OCR desktop apps available on macOS.

Using Prizmo

To try the free trial of Prizmo, you need to download it from the developer site first. You can also download the full version from the Mac App Store but you have to pay for it.

Note that there are limitations to the trial as it won’t scan all words but it works for most of them.

When you open it for the first time, Prizmo has a simple interface that allows you to start a new document or upload one to it.

If you have a document or photo saved on your hard drive, click on “Open Document…” and you can drag it into Prizmo. Alternatively you can:

• Import an image with text in that you want to extract from a Scanner or Camera.
• Use Continuity on your iPhone to insert an image.
• Take a photo with your iPhone or Pad connected via USB (you could also of course AirDrop an image onto your Mac too).

I uploaded a simple image taken from a webpage to see how Prizmo handled extracting the text.

Once the image is uploaded, you simply click on the “Recognize” button in the top right corner and Prizmo instantly extracts the text from the page.

The “……” parts are limitations imposed by the demo but the words are revealed if you upgrade.

As you can see, in this case Prizmo did a pretty good job.

If the scan doesn’t come out as accurately as you hoped, you can click on the “Prepare” button at the top and then on the “OCR” button at the bottom of the interface.

This gives you some controls over the readability, polarity and resolution to tweak Prizmo so that you get better results. It also provides document specific settings for Business Cards and Documents.

For quick and easy OCR scanning, Prizmo performs incredibly well but here we take a closer look at its features in more detail.

Powerful OCR Capabilities

The core feature of Prizmo is its OCR functionality. It allows you to extract text from scanned documents, images, PDFs, and even screenshots.

Whether you’re dealing with receipts, business cards, handwritten notes or multi-page documents, Prizmo can handle them all.

• Accurate Text Recognition: Prizmo supports more than 26 languages, including Chinese and Arabic. The accuracy is impressive, thanks to built-in support for advanced text recognition engines. You can scan handwritten notes or printed text, and Prizmo will do a very decent job at extracting the text. As you can see in the magazine sample below, Prizmo does a very good of extracting text accurately and conveniently divides them by paragraph block. In this example, Prizmo only made a few mistakes in the 4 page document.

If you find that Prizmo has missed a paragraph or you want to add one manually, you can with the “Add” button and also reorder them with the “Reorder” button along the bottom of the interface.

Document Scanning and Enhancement

You can use Prizmo to scan documents using your Mac’s camera or any external camera device.

The app provides tools to improve and clean up your scans, so even if your original document isn’t in the best condition, Prizmo can improve the quality and make it look more polished.

• Auto-Correction: One of the standout features here is automatic edge detection and correction. If you’ve ever scanned a document that was slightly tilted or off-center, Prizmo will automatically straighten it for you. This includes “Curvature Correction” which is useful if you’ve scanned a magazine and the scan quality isn’t great because of the curvature of the binding.
• Perspective Correction: Similarly, if your document was photographed at an angle, the perspective correction feature will adjust the image, so it appears as though it was scanned straight on.

• Image Enhancement: Prizmo offers several enhancement tools to improve the clarity of your documents, including brightness and contrast adjustments, sharpening, and color balance corrections.

Text-to-Speech and Translation

Prizmo can also be used as a productivity tool for those who need accessibility options or translation capabilities.

• Text-to-Speech: Prizmo can read scanned text aloud using macOS’s built-in voices. This feature is perfect for users with visual impairments or those who want to multitask while “reading” through a document.
• Translation: With integrated translation options, Prizmo can translate extracted text between over 30 languages. Note that this is only available in the Pro version but is useful for professional translators or those that want to publish articles online in other languages.

Multi-Platform Availability

Prizmo is available on both macOS and iOS.

The iOS version is optimized for mobile scanning, which is convenient if you need to digitize documents on the go.

Additionally, the app syncs with iCloud, making sure your documents and scans are available across your devices and synchronizing your documents between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad as smooth as possible.

Prizmo also integrates with note taking app Evernote, Cloud storage services Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and supports WebDAV.

Scanning Handwriting with Prizmo

Prizmo is one of the few OCR software that supports handwriting and while its not the best handwriting OCR software we’ve tested, it’s remarkably good.

You can read more about our tests with it here but we ranked it second in terms of accuracy. This is very respectable as handwriting OCR is a specialized area that not even big hitters like FineReader PDF or Adobe Acrobat Pro support.

One thing that Prizmo requires with handwriting is high resolution documents which can be a problem with older documents.

We were frequently served with the warning that hand written documents didn’t have a high enough resolution and Prizmo’s attempt to correct this were unsuccessful.

Alternatives to Prizmo

Prizmo is in a competitive field with apps like Adobe Acrobat, ABBYY FineReader, and Microsoft Lens on mobile all offering their own takes on OCR and scanning.

Here’s how Prizmo compares with these rivals.

• Prizmo vs. Adobe Acrobat Pro DC: Acrobat Pro DC is a full-featured PDF tool that includes OCR. While Adobe is more powerful in terms of PDF manipulation and editing, Prizmo shines in the simplicity and accuracy of its OCR, especially when working with multiple languages. Adobe might be overkill for users who only need OCR functionality and it also requires a subscription.
• Prizmo vs. ABBYY FineReader PDF: ABBYY FineReader PDF offers a more powerful OCR engine, especially for highly complex documents. However, ABBYY lacks the easy-to-use interface that makes Prizmo so attractive for regular, everyday users.
• Prizmo vs. Microsoft Lens: Microsoft Lens is a free option that works well for basic scanning and text extraction. However, it doesn’t offer the same level of accuracy, multi-language support, or advanced features like text-to-speech and translation.

Is Prizmo Worth It?

Prizmo is a well-rounded, feature-packed application that delivers reliable OCR, document scanning, and text manipulation tools.

No matter if you’re a professional needing to process multiple documents daily or a student wanting to digitize notes, Prizmo has something to offer.

However, the premium price point means that it may not be for everyone.

If you only need occasional OCR or scanning, a free OCR software may suffice.

On the other hand, if you value accuracy, multi-language support, and a polished user experience, Prizmo is absolutely worth the investment.