Work · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to CTRL-F

Search printed documents, with your camera!

CTRL-F is an Android app that lets users search text within printed documents using their phone's camera. It captures images of physical pages and enables keyword searching across the scanned content. The app is… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. CTRL-F launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
SearchCam▲358
CTRL+F for real world
2018 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
2
Adobe Scan▲498
Adobe's free scan app with text recognition superpowers
2017 · adobe.com · its alternatives →
3
Sifty Search▲63
Online tool for searching through documents. CTRL+F on crack
2019 · its alternatives →
4
PhotoScan by Google▲1,219
Photos from the past, meet scanner from the future
2016 · blog.google · its alternatives →
5
Find It▲141
Search physical documents using your phone's camera 🔎
2018 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
6
Semantic Search for Ctrl+F▲14
Hi HN! Ctrl+F sucks because I can never seem to find what I'm looking for. I built an NLP-based alternative that works pretty damn well. Let me know what you think. P.s. it will soon support image searches
2022 · chrome.google.com · its alternatives →
7
CTRL-F for YouTube Videos▲137
This is a small project i made years ago and updated to whisper last year, i still use it from time to time and thought it might be useful to others, or just put the idea out there for someone better than me to make a better implementation!
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
8
Anyline Keyboard▲330
Phone keyboard that let's you scan text instead of typing it
2020 · anyline.com · its alternatives →
9
Open Scanner, an open-source document scanning app for iPhone▲264
Fast, reliable, and free document scanner app for iPhone - pencilresearch/OpenScanner
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
10
EnfsScanner PDF Scanner▲65
The perfect solution for scanning your important documents
2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
11
TextSniper▲204
Capture any text from your Mac's screen
2020 · textsniper.app · its alternatives →
12
Google Search Scanner by LINER▲156
Filter out irrelevant search results and save your time
2021 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →
13
Spottr▲138
Ctrl+F for videos
2025 · its alternatives →
14
WRD Camera▲78
Search physical printed documents using your iPhone camera
2019 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
15
Smart Finder▲99
Powerful Ctrl+F alternative
2025 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →
16
Find On Paper▲75
An application that finds desired words in a hard-copy paper
2019 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
17
Doc Scan▲63
Help you scan and organize hundreds of documents efficiently
2019 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
18
PDF Search for iPhone and iPad▲99
Search multiple documents insanely fast
2017 · pdfsearchapp.com · its alternatives →
19
ScanSnap Scanner ▲84
Press a button to scan business cards, photos, & more
2015 · evernote.com · its alternatives →
20
Scanlt▲103
PDF & document scanner, ads-free, smart PDF converter
2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
21
Scanlt▲116
Ads-free PDF & document scanner
2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
22
Recall▲75
Search for your documents, pictures, audio, video and more.
2020 · its alternatives →
23
ABBYY Fine Scanner 5▲122
Scan and recognize multipage documents in PDF or JPG
2015 · pdf.abbyy.com · its alternatives →
24
PDF Search for Mac▲81
Search multiple documents insanely fast
2017 · pdfsearchapp.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →