You can turn a photo of a page, a screenshot or a scanned picture into words you can edit with this image to text tool. It reads the printed text in your image and gives it back as a plain .txt file that you can paste anywhere. It's free, and you don't need an account to use it.
How to extract text from an image
- Tap "Select files" on a phone, or drag your images onto the upload box on a computer. JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP and TIFF files are accepted.
- Choose the language of the text from the Language list.
- Start the conversion and wait while the tool reads each picture.
- Download the result. One image gives you a single .txt file, and several images come back together in one ZIP.
What OCR does, in plain words
OCR stands for optical character recognition. To your computer, a photo of a page is just coloured dots, so you can't select or copy a single word from it. OCR software looks at the shapes of the letters, works out which characters they are and writes them out as real text.
This tool does that for one picture or for up to 30 at once. What you get is plain text. Formatting and pictures from the original are left behind, which makes the words easy to drop into Microsoft Word, Google Docs, an email or a notes app and tidy up there.
Choosing the right language
Pick the language your text is written in before you start. The list includes English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Hindi, Russian, Turkish and Indonesian, plus a few more. The setting tells the OCR engine which alphabet and letter patterns to expect, so the right choice usually gives cleaner text. If a picture mixes two languages, choose the one that makes up most of it.
When people use image to text
A lot of useful text ends up stuck inside pictures. A student photographs a few pages of a library book and wants to quote a passage in an essay without retyping it. Someone gets a screenshot on WhatsApp with an address or a long list of names and needs it in a document. An office worker has a printed letter and wants its wording in an email.
Small businesses use it too. If a supplier sends a price list as a photo, OCR can pull out the item names so you can paste them into a spreadsheet instead of typing each one. Teachers often have worksheets that only exist on paper, and a clear photo plus a quick OCR run gets the questions back into an editable file.
Retyping a full page by hand takes a long time and invites typos. Pulling the text out with OCR and then checking it is usually much quicker.
Tips for better results
The quality of the text depends mostly on the picture you give the tool. These habits help:
- Photograph the page straight on, not at an angle, and let the text fill the frame.
- Use even light. Shadows across the page and glare from glossy paper hide letters.
- Hold the phone steady. Blur is the most common reason for poor results.
- Crop out anything that isn't text, such as the table under the page or your fingers.
- For screenshots, upload the original image instead of a photo taken of a screen.
What it doesn't handle well
Handwriting gives poor results. The tool is built for clear printed text, and even neat handwriting often comes out garbled. Blurry photos and very small text also cause mistakes. Read through the .txt file and correct anything that looks wrong before you rely on it, especially numbers and names.
Because the output is a plain .txt file, tables and page layout aren't kept. A page with columns or a table may need some tidying after conversion.
PDFs and iPhone photos
If your scan is a PDF, use OCR PDF instead. It adds a hidden text layer to the PDF so you can search and copy from it while the pages look exactly as before. When the PDF was made from a text document and isn't a scan, PDF to text can pull the words out directly.
iPhone photos are often saved as HEIC files, which this tool doesn't accept. Convert them with HEIC to JPG first, then upload the JPG files here.
Your images and privacy
Your images are processed on our server and deleted as soon as the text is sent back to you. We don't store them or share them with anyone. You don't need to sign up or give an email address. The tool runs in your web browser on Android phones, iPhones and computers running Windows, Mac, Linux or ChromeOS, so there's nothing to install. Each upload can be up to 100 MB.
Frequently asked questions
Is the image to text converter free?
Yes. It's free to use and you don't need to create an account. Upload your pictures, pick a language and download the text.
Can I extract text from an image on my phone?
Yes. Open this page in the browser on your Android phone or iPhone, tap "Select files" and choose a photo or screenshot from your gallery. The .txt file downloads to your phone like any other file.
Does it work with handwriting?
Not well. The tool is designed for clear printed text, and handwriting usually comes out with a lot of mistakes. For handwritten notes, typing them out yourself is often more reliable.
How many images can I convert at once?
You can upload up to 30 images at a time, within the 100 MB upload limit. When you convert more than one image, the text files arrive together in a single ZIP.
Which image formats can I upload?
JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP and TIFF. If you have an iPhone photo in HEIC format, convert it to JPG first and then upload it.
Why does my text have so many errors?
Usually the photo is the cause. It may be blurry, taken at an angle or poorly lit, or the text may be very small. Retake the picture straight on in good light, check that the right language is selected and try again.
Are my pictures saved anywhere?
No. Your images are deleted from our server as soon as the result is sent back, and they aren't shared with anyone.