Image to Text
Pull the English text out of an image, such as a photo, scan or screenshot, then copy it or save it as a .txt file.
or drop it anywhere on this page
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or TIFF · English text only
How to convert an image to text
- 1Pick a picture
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or TIFF, up to 25 MB on the free plan.
- 2We read the words
Tesseract, an open-source text-recognition (OCR) engine, finds the English words in it.
- 3Copy or download
Paste the text anywhere, or save it as a plain .txt file.
What it reads well
- Screenshots of apps, websites and messages
- Scans and photos of printed pages, letters and receipts
- Signs, labels and slides photographed straight on
What it struggles with
- Handwriting
- Any language other than English
- Tiny, blurry, curved or decorative lettering
- Words over a busy photo or a transparent background
Worth knowing
You get the words, not the look: plain lines of text with no fonts, columns or tables. A scanned multi-page TIFF is read page by page; from an animated GIF, only the first frame is read. Check the text before you rely on it.
Questions people ask
Is Image to Text free?
Yes. Up to 25 MB and 3 conversions a day are free, with no account, and each picture you read counts as one. Pro and Business lift the file limit to 100 MB and remove the daily cap.
Which languages can it read?
English only. Words in other languages, and letters outside the English alphabet, may be misread or left out.
Can it read handwriting?
Not reliably. It is made for printed and typed text, so handwriting usually comes out wrong or not at all.
Does it keep the layout?
No. You get the words as plain lines of text, in reading order. Fonts, colours, columns and tables are not kept.
Why did it find no text?
Usually the text is too small, blurry or faint, it is handwritten, it is not in English, or it sits on a transparent background. A sharp picture taken straight on, cropped to the words, gives it the best chance.
What happens to my picture?
The picture and the text we read from it are deleted 24 hours after you upload it, automatically. Nothing is used for training and no person looks at your files.
Can I read several pictures at once?
This page reads one picture at a time. On Pro and Business, the JPG to Text and PNG to Text pages take a batch of up to 100 files.