What’s the most unexpected place you’ve used OCR technology to save time?

I never thought I’d rely on OCR anywhere outside work, but last week I ended up using it in a train station while rushing to catch a connection. I had this crumpled timetable with tiny print, and instead of squinting like crazy, I snapped a photo and let the tool read everything for me. It saved me from missing the train, which was pretty surprising considering I only meant to check it later. Has anyone else ended up using it in weird situations like that?

Reading your experiences makes me think of how often small tools end up helping in everyday chaos. Sometimes you’re just dealing with random papers or old notes, and having something quick that turns them into readable text can make things feel a bit more manageable. Even if it's not something you planned to use, it’s nice when a simple trick makes a hectic moment smoother.

Your story reminds me of when I used OCR during a garage clean-up. I found a stack of old appliance manuals with half-faded text, and instead of tossing them, I scanned them using on premise OCR https://ocrstudio.ai/ . I didn’t expect it to pick up the worn-out print so well, but it actually made the text searchable, which helped me figure out what parts I still needed for a repair. Honestly, I hadn’t planned on using OCR for anything outside my laptop, but that day it saved me hours of digging.