Optical Character Recognition

Applies to TestComplete 14.70, last modified on April 22, 2021

This section describes TestComplete support for optical character recognition implemented with the Google Vision API. If no other means of accessing data in your tested application is available, you can use optical character recognition to get the text your tested application renders on screen, to verify that text, and to simulate user actions on the screen areas you recognize by their text contents.

In This Section

About Optical Character Recognition

Describes how to use optical character recognition in automated tests to work with UI elements that TestComplete does not recognize in usual ways.

Optical Character Recognition - Requirements

Describes the requirements that must be met for TestComplete to be able to recognize text on the screen.

Simulate User Actions

Describes how to simulate user actions on UI elements recognized by their text contents.

Working With Grid Controls

Describes how to work with grids exposed by using optical character recognition.

Check Text Contents

Describes how to use optical character recognition to check the text contents of your tested application.

Get Text Blocks

Describes how to iterate through recognized text blocks to select the needed one.

Get Controls With No Text Contents

Describes how to identify a control with no text contents by text of nearby controls.

Migrate Tests Created in Earlier Versions

Describes how to migrate your existing tests using the legacy optical character recognition to the new format.

Possible Alternatives to Optical Character Recognition

Describes possible alternatives that you can use in your tests instead of optical character recognition.

Optical Character Recognition - Troubleshooting

Describes how to fix the most common issues occurring when using optical character recognition in tests.

Tutorials

Optical Character Recognition - Tutorial

Follow this tutorial to learn how to recognize characters rendered on the screen and how to simulate user actions on controls recognized by their text contents.

Optical Character Recognition (Legacy)

Using Optical Character Recognition

Prior to version 12.60, TestComplete provided built-in OCR modules. Unlike the current OCR support featuring Google Vision API, those modules:
  • Could recognize only ASCII and Unicode text.

  • Did not provide a straightforward way to simulate user actions on a screen area that contains a needed text fragment.

Using Optical Character Recognition - Requirements

Learn how to restore legacy modules. You will not be able to use the new OCR featuring Google Cloud Vision API.

See Also

Object Identification

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