How to get the text out of a picture
- Choose a picture of text: a screenshot, a photo of a page, a scan of a receipt or a slide.
- Press Read the text. The first time, your browser downloads the text reader, about 6 MB, and saves it. A bar and a clock show how far along it is.
- Copy the text, or download it as a .txt file.
Your picture stays on your device
The text is read inside this page by software running in your browser. The picture is never uploaded. Only the reader's own files are downloaded, once, from our site and our storage.
Getting a clean result
- Straight and sharp. A flat, well-lit picture reads best. Crop out the background.
- Large enough. Text under about 20 pixels tall reads poorly. A zoomed screenshot beats a small one.
- Dark text on a plain background works best. Busy backgrounds and stylised fonts cause mistakes.
- Always read the result once. OCR confuses similar characters such as 0 and O or l and 1.
Limits to know
- English only in this version. Other languages and handwriting are not supported.
- One picture at a time. For a PDF, turn the pages into pictures with PDF to JPG first.
- It reads text; it does not keep the layout of columns or tables.
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Credits: Text recognition by Tesseract.js and its engine (Apache License 2.0), with the English "fast" language data from the Tesseract project (Apache License 2.0). License texts: Tesseract.js, engine, language data.
Frequently asked questions
How do I extract text from an image for free?
Choose the picture on this page and press Read the text. Then copy the text or download it. It is free, needs no account and runs in your browser.
Is my picture uploaded?
No. The text is read on your device inside the page.
Which languages does it read?
English only in this version.
Can it read handwriting?
No. It is built for printed text, such as screenshots, scans and photos of pages.
Why does the first run take longer?
Your browser downloads the text reader once, about 6 MB, and saves it. After that it starts quickly.
Why are some characters wrong?
OCR can confuse similar characters, and low-resolution or busy pictures read worse. Use a larger, sharper picture and check the result.
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