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How can I add more OCR languages for the Windows.Media.Ocr engine?

The Windows.Media.Ocr engine used by OCR Connector is the built-in OCR of Windows. It can only recognize languages whose OCR language pack is installed on the device. By default, Windows usually installs the OCR language pack only for the display language, so GetInstalledOCRInfo() may return only one language (e.g. en-US).

To recognize other languages, such as Japanese or Chinese, install the corresponding OCR language pack on the end-user’s computer using either of the methods below. For the languages that Windows.Media.Ocr supports, see Supported Languages Declared by Each Engine.

Check the installed OCR languages

Open Windows PowerShell (not PowerShell 7) and run the following commands. Administrator privileges are not required.

[Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine, Windows.Foundation, ContentType = WindowsRuntime] | Out-Null
[Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine]::AvailableRecognizerLanguages

The output lists the languages that Windows.Media.Ocr can currently use on this computer.

Method 1: Add a language in Windows Settings

1. Open Settings and go to:
   • Windows 11: Time & language > Language & region
   • Windows 10: Time & Language > Language
2. Under Preferred languages, click Add a language.
3. Select the language you need (e.g. Japanese or Chinese (Simplified, China)) and click Next.
4. On the Install language features page, make sure Optical character recognition is listed. If you don’t want to change the Windows display language, uncheck the display language option (e.g. Set as my Windows display language).
5. Click Install and wait for the installation to finish.

Note:

• If Optical character recognition is not listed for a language, Windows does not provide OCR for that language.
• IT administrators can block users from installing languages through the RestrictLanguagePacksAndFeaturesInstall policy. In this case, use Method 2 or contact your IT administrator.

Method 2: Install the OCR language pack with PowerShell

This method only installs the OCR language pack, without adding a display or input language.

1. Right-click Windows PowerShell and select Run as administrator.

2. List all OCR language packs and their states:

   Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object { $_.Name -Like 'Language.OCR*' }
   

   Example output:

   Name  : Language.OCR~~~en-US~0.0.1.0
   State : Installed
   
   Name  : Language.OCR~~~ja-JP~0.0.1.0
   State : NotPresent
   

   NotPresent means the language pack is not installed yet. If a language is not in the list, Windows does not provide OCR for it.

3. Install the language pack you need. For example, to install Japanese (ja-JP):

   $Capability = Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object { $_.Name -Like 'Language.OCR*ja-JP*' }
   $Capability | Add-WindowsCapability -Online
   

   Replace ja-JP with zh-CN for Simplified Chinese, zh-TW for Traditional Chinese, ko-KR for Korean, and so on. The installation may take several minutes.

To remove an OCR language pack, replace Add-WindowsCapability with Remove-WindowsCapability in the command above.

After installation

Reload your web page and call GetInstalledOCRInfo() again. The new language should now be listed under the Windows.Media.Ocr engine. If it does not appear, restart the computer and try again.

Note: If the OCR language pack is installed but still not available, and Windows is installed on a drive other than C: (e.g. X:), copy the X:\Windows\OCR folder to C:\Windows\OCR.

References

• PowerToys Text Extractor - Install an OCR language pack
• Language and region Features on Demand (FOD)

Original post creation date: Oct 28, 2026

Last modified date: Oct 28, 2026