Today I learned …. In addition to scanning text from photos and using the copy/paste text from photos features, on my iPhone 14 (with iOS 16) I can scan “live text” right from within the keyboard.

Mistakenly, I was looking for an activation icon in the keyboard area.

This feature isn’t very discoverable (at least it wasn’t to me) because this is not activated from the keyboard, it’s activated from the text entry area. Touch the input area or text box you want to type. You may be used to using this area to touch to enable the copy/paste menu or text selection. On the menu now, you’ll also see the scan text icon.

This will swap out the keyboard area with a camera, where you can point at text in your camera lens, then touch to select the text you want to enter and insert.

From here, the feature works the same as when scanning text from a photo and then using copy/paste. The benefit of the keyboard is … you don’t have to pop out to take a picture first. Just scan right into the data entry text field.

I hope this helps!