Windows OCR does not work

When using Print&Share or Print&Share CQ, you can perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This could for example allow you to use recognition features on scanned documents. One of the options you can choose in the General Configuration or Settings is Windows OCR.

This article might help you in case the Windows OCR does not work.

Troubleshooting

When enabling Windows OCR in e.g. Print&Share or Print&Share CQ, nothing happens and no text is found when printing documents. You don't see any clear error happening.


A possible reason could be that there are no OCR-language packs installed on your computer.

For Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft clearly states:

A language pack must be installed on the device to be used. A user can install new OCR language packs through the Settings app.

Windows OCR-language packs

Not all (OCR) features are available for every language, hardware or operating system.

Method 1

The most simple way to see if there are any language packs installed or to add new languages after Windows is installed is by going to:

  1. Settings
  2. Time & Language
  3. Region & language
  4. Add a language

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Method 2

  1. Log in to Windows (Server)
  2. Open Windows Settings
  3. Click on Apps to open Apps and features
  4. Click on Manage optional features
  5. Click on Add a feature
  6. Select for example: Dutch optical character recognition

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If you don't see this optional Windows features, you first have to install a language pack, see Method 1.

This method has been tested on Windows Server 2019.

Method 3

Another method to get more information about (OCR-)language pack packs would be using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) to check the installed components and Featurs On Demand.

We could get more information by following these steps:

  1. Open Command Prompt (cmd) with elevated permissions
  2. Type in DISM /Online /Get-Capabilities and press Enter

If there is too much information in the Windows Command Prompt, you can write the output to a file:

  1. Open Command Prompt (cmd) with elevated permissions
  2. (optional) Change the directory to root (or any other location so save the output file) by typing: cd \ and press Enter
  3. Type in DISM /Online /Get-Capabilities > capaoutput.txt and press Enter
  4. Open the generated file by typing capaoutput.txt and press Enter

In this file you can find if a capability is Installed or Not Present.
For example:

Capability Identity : Language.OCR~~~en-US~0.0.1.0
State : Installed

Capability Identity : Language.OCR~~~nl-NL~0.0.1.0
State : Installed

In case you could not find any Languages, (OCR-)Language packs or components/features make sure to install them.

See also

🏷 ocr