How it works
- Add one or more pictures: a photo, a screenshot or a scan.
- Tick the language of the text (up to three).
- Press Read the text, then copy it from the box under the result, or download the .txt file.
Image to text: copy the words out of a picture
A screenshot of a message, a photo of a notice, a scanned certificate: if you can see the words, you should be able to copy them. This reads the text in a picture and gives it back as text you can select, paste and save, in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Urdu. It runs in your browser, so the picture is never uploaded.
Files stay on your device. Free, with no sign-up.
Image to Text tool
- 1Add pictures with text
- 2Adjust
- 3Download
Files
Done
Nothing left your device.
Getting a good result
Use the sharpest, straightest picture you have, with the text filling a good part of it. Photograph a page flat, in even light, from straight above: a slanted photo reads much worse. If you have a photo of a document, Scan to PDF can straighten it first. Tick only the languages that are really in the picture.
Frequently asked questions
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything happens inside your browser, on your own device. Your files are never sent to a server, and you can confirm that in your browser's network tab. Close the tab and they're gone.
How accurate is it?
On a sharp picture of printed text it is usually very good. It is weaker on handwriting, on blurred or crooked photos, on very small text and on pictures with busy backgrounds. The result says how sure it was, and it is worth reading the text against the picture, since similar characters (0 and O, 1 and l) can be mixed up.
Which languages can it read?
English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Urdu. For a picture with two languages, such as a notice in English and Hindi, tick both. Each language is a small file of 1 to 3 MB, downloaded from this site the first time and kept on your device.
Why is the text in the wrong order, or broken into short lines?
The text comes in the order and line breaks of the picture. Tick "Join the lines of each paragraph" to get ordinary paragraphs that are easy to paste into a message or a document. A picture with several columns or a table may need tidying by hand.
Does it work on screenshots with dark backgrounds?
Yes. Light text on a dark background, as in a dark-mode screenshot, is turned round before it is read, and the result says so.
Can I read a whole PDF of scans?
Yes, with OCR PDF, which makes the PDF searchable, or PDF to Text, which saves its words as a .txt file.
Is there a file size limit?
Each file can be up to 100 MB, and up to 300 MB in total. Because the work happens on your device, very large files depend on your available memory. A desktop browser handles them best.