title: Optical Character Recognition for Windows 8.1 App
body: <p>I'm entirely new to Windows 8.1 and Optical Character Recognition, so I admit this is pretty much a beginner's area for me. I've been looking to implement OCR in my Win8.1 app, and have found this nifty <a href="http://www.bing.com/dev/en-us/ocr" rel="nofollow">Bing OCR Control</a>. Unfortunately, unlike the <code>CameraCaptureUI</code>, this <code>OcrControl</code> doesn't seem to recognise my webcam; in fact one of its <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn261737.aspx" rel="nofollow">hardware requirements</a> is "a built in rear facing camera that supports 1280x720 or 640x480 resolution in photo mode".</p>
  
  <p>My first question is this: is there any way to circumvent this? For example, change the <code>OcrControl</code>'s settings or Win8.1 emulator's settings.</p>
  
  <p>If there's no hacky way around this (or if you haven't tried <code>OcrControl</code> previously), then my second question would be: would OCR be more feasible done locally or done by calling a web service? I would be going the extra mile if I were to ask to list some .NET libraries suitable for my use--I think that's going to be the easy part!</p>
  
  <p>Anyhow, my requirements for OCR is simple: just read the text from a piece of paper and convert it to a <code>string</code> or whatnot. Thank you very much!</p>