The free OCR scanning service supports PDF, JPG, GIF, TIFF or BMP files with a maximum file size of two Megabytes. The OCR currently supports the six languages English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch.

Best results are achieved if the images have a dpi setting of at least 150. That’s problematic when taking screenshots as these usually are taken at a lower value.

Results range from impressive to workable and it is a good idea to check the recognized text and correct any errors made during the OCR scan. Free OCR has a few additional limitations that are mentioned in the faq on the website. Probably the two biggest restrictions are a one page limitation when scanning pdf documents and that it will not recognize document layouts which means that a two column layout will be processed as a single column layout.

The developers of Free OCR promised to update their service in the near future to remove these restrictions and limitations. Thanks go to JoJo for sending in the tip.