TestComplete by AutomatedQA is a tool for automated testing, useful in many software testing scenarios ranging from internal unit testing to black box UI testing. The next major version 4 has been in the making for a while now and they still don’t announce a release date, but every now and then they make previews of various new features available (for example on their new community site).

The latest thing that caught my eye was that OCR is going to come to automated testing in TestComplete 4. From TestComplete’s scripting languages, it will be possible to use OCR to parse text on screen that has been drawn there, in other words, which is part of an image. Apparently it can work with a configurable selection of arbitrary Windows fonts - I’m looking forward to trying how well it will work with my TabletPC-generated handwritten Oliver Sturm font . A great idea, it will certainly make black box testing much easier in many cases.

Here’s the article about this on the AQA community site, which has a few more details: TestComplete 4 Sneak Peak - OCR