# How can I compare a text input to text converted from an image using an OCR API? **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions about Thunkable X\ **Created:** [February 2, 2024, 3:11pm UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-can-i-compare-a-text-input-to-text-converted-from-an-image-using-an-ocr-api/2816629 "2024-02-02T15:11:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 9
**Author:** ![tatiang](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/community.thunkable.com/tatiang/32/55482_2.png) [@tatiang](https://community.thunkable.com/u/tatiang)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 6:57am UTC](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-can-i-compare-a-text-input-to-text-converted-from-an-image-using-an-ocr-api/2816629/9 "2024-02-03T06:57:54Z")
I get a “null” value every time I take a photo of a license plate. For example, this one: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/California\_2018\_License\_Plate.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/California_2018_License_Plate.jpg). But honestly, that doesn’t even matter because the OCR API you’re using is not high quality enough to recognize license plates consistently. I discuss that in a long thread linked from this post: [Displaying the texts from the picture similar to the one from the textbox - #4 by tatiang](https://community.thunkable.com/t/displaying-the-texts-from-the-picture-similar-to-the-one-from-the-textbox/2531494/4). The bottom line is that if you want to do license plate recognition, you’re going to have to pay for a better OCR API. I spent **a lot** of time trying to do what you’re doing with the same free API that you’re using so that I could help the users in those two topics. But I’m sorry to say that the free API you’re using is not worth your time. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.thunkable.com/t/how-can-i-compare-a-text-input-to-text-converted-from-an-image-using-an-ocr-api/2816629)._