Image to Text (OCR) — Free & Private

Extract text from images using OCR. Supports PNG, JPG, WebP, and BMP. Runs entirely in your browser — no upload to any server.

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Image to Text (OCR) — Extract Text from Screenshots & Photos

Need to copy text from a screenshot, scanned document, or photo? This OCR tool uses Tesseract.js to recognize text in images directly in your browser. Supports 7 languages including English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. No upload required — your images stay on your device.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) works by detecting character shapes in an image and matching them against trained language models. The confidence score tells you how certain the engine is about each recognized word. High-contrast printed text on clean backgrounds typically achieves 95%+ accuracy.

This tool processes everything client-side using WebAssembly. The Tesseract language models are downloaded once and cached in your browser. Subsequent uses are faster because the model files are already available locally.

Common use cases include digitizing printed documents, extracting text from screenshots for editing, copying data from images of spreadsheets or tables, and converting photographed book pages into searchable text. For best results, crop the image to include only the text area before processing.

After extracting text, use our Text Case Converter to reformat capitalization, or the Word Counter to analyze the extracted content. For scanned documents that need to become PDFs, combine the extracted text with our Image to PDF tool.

How Image to Text (OCR) Works

  1. Upload or drop an image containing text (PNG, JPG, WebP, or BMP)
  2. Select the language of the text in the image
  3. The OCR engine analyzes the image and extracts text with a progress indicator
  4. Edit, copy, or download the extracted text

Getting the Best OCR Results

For the best text recognition accuracy, use high-resolution images with clear, well-lit text. Straight text on a plain background gives the highest confidence scores. Handwritten text, unusual fonts, or low-contrast images may produce less accurate results. This tool uses Tesseract.js, the most widely used open-source OCR engine, running entirely in your browser.

When to Use Image to Text

Use this tool to extract text from screenshots, scanned documents, photos of whiteboards, book pages, receipts, or any image containing printed text. Perfect for digitizing paper documents without a scanner app.

Common Use Cases

  • Extract text from screenshots to avoid retyping content manually
  • Digitize printed documents, business cards, or receipts without a scanner app
  • Copy text from photos of whiteboards taken during meetings Image Resizer — Exact Dimensions Free
  • Convert photographed book pages or articles into editable text
  • Extract data from images of spreadsheets or tables for further processing

Expert Tips

  • Crop the image to include only the text area before processing — this improves accuracy and speeds up recognition significantly.
  • Use high-contrast images for best results. If the original is low-contrast, increase brightness and contrast in a photo editor first.
  • Select the correct language before processing — the OCR engine uses language-specific models that affect character recognition patterns.
  • For multi-column layouts, consider processing each column as a separate cropped image to avoid mixed text from adjacent columns.
  • If accuracy is below 80%, try preprocessing the image: convert to grayscale, increase resolution, or straighten rotated text.

Frequently Asked Questions

What languages are supported?
English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Each language uses a trained model optimized for that script.
Is my image uploaded to a server?
No. All OCR processing happens entirely in your browser using Tesseract.js. Your images never leave your device.
Can it read handwritten text?
Tesseract works best with printed text. Handwriting recognition has limited accuracy and depends on legibility.
What does the confidence percentage mean?
Confidence indicates how certain the OCR engine is about the recognized text. Above 80% is generally reliable. Lower scores suggest the image quality may be affecting accuracy.

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