Select OCR language from a code page

Policy ID: SelectOCRLangsCodePage
Scope: Computer Configuration
Supported on: At least Windows 7 through Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2
Source: Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2026 Update (26H2) (version 1.0)
Category: Windows Components › Search › OCR

Description

This policy setting allows selecting of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) languages that belong to one of the supported code pages. If you enable this policy setting, the selected OCR languages are used in OCR processing during the indexing of TIFF files. The default system language is ignored unless it is among the selected OCR languages. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, only the default system language is used.

All selected OCR languages must belong to the same code page. If you select languages from more than one code page, the entire OCR language selection is ignored and only the default system language is used.

Re-indexing is not initiated when you enable this policy and selecting OCR languages. This policy setting only applies to the indexing of new files, unless re-indexing is initiated manually.

Options

The empty box and the checked box tell the checkbox items of the Group Policy editor apart (a checked box is an item that is selected by default).

Baltic (1257) code page
Estonian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Central European (1250, Latin 2) code page
Albanian
Croatian
Czech
Hungarian
Polish
Romanian
Serbian Latin
Slovak
Slovenian
Cyrillic (1251) code page
Bulgarian
Belarusian
Macedonian (F.Y.R.O. Macedonia)
Russian
Serbian
Ukrainian
Western European (1252, Latin 1) code page
Catalan
Danish
Dutch
English
Faroese
Finnish
French
German
Icelandic
Indonesian
Italian
Malay
Norwegian
Portuguese
Spanish
Swedish
Greek (1253) code page
Greek
Turkish (1254) code page
Turkish
Chinese Simplified (936, GB2312) code page
Chinese (simplified)
Chinese Traditional (950, Big5) code page
Chinese (traditional)
Japanese (932, Shift-JIS) code page
Japanese
Korean (949) code page
Korean

Registry

ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\OCR View registry values

SelectOCRLangs-
EstonianREG_DWORD
LatvianREG_DWORD
LithuanianREG_DWORD
AlbanianREG_DWORD
CroatianREG_DWORD
CzechREG_DWORD
HungarianREG_DWORD
PolishREG_DWORD
RomanianREG_DWORD
SerbianLatinREG_DWORD
SlovakREG_DWORD
SlovenianREG_DWORD
BulgarianREG_DWORD
ByelorussianREG_DWORD
MacedoniaFYROREG_DWORD
RussianREG_DWORD
SerbianREG_DWORD
UkrainianREG_DWORD
CatalanREG_DWORD
DanishREG_DWORD
DutchREG_DWORD
EnglishREG_DWORD
FaroeseREG_DWORD
FinnishREG_DWORD
FrenchREG_DWORD
GermanREG_DWORD
IcelandicREG_DWORD
IndonesianREG_DWORD
ItalianREG_DWORD
MalaysianREG_DWORD
NorwegianREG_DWORD
PortugueseREG_DWORD
SpanishREG_DWORD
SwedishREG_DWORD
GreekREG_DWORD
TurkishREG_DWORD
Chinese (Simplified)REG_DWORD
Chinese (Traditional)REG_DWORD
JapaneseREG_DWORD
KoreanREG_DWORD

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