Image to Text Converter
Free Online OCR Tool

Image to Text — review OCR output before downloading

Need to get text out of an image? Whether it is a screenshot of an article, a photo of a handwritten note, a scanned document, or a receipt you photographed on your phone — this tool uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to turn visible printed text into editable text. Choose from 16 supported languages and review the result before downloading it.

Your selected image is processed in the browser. The OCR library and language data may be downloaded from third-party CDNs before the recognition step begins. Once the text is extracted, you can edit it directly on screen, copy it to your clipboard, download it as a plain text file, or save it as a proper Microsoft Word (.docx) document.

How to Extract Text from an Image — Step by Step

1. Upload your image — drag and drop or click to browse. Supports JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, and BMP. Screenshots work perfectly.
2. Select the language — choose the language of the text in your image from the dropdown. Selecting the correct language significantly improves accuracy. The tool currently provides 16 language options.
3. Click Extract Text — the OCR engine analyses your image and extracts all readable text. A progress bar shows you how far along it is. Most images take 5–15 seconds.
4. Review and edit — the extracted text appears in an editable text area. Correct any errors the OCR may have made before downloading.
5. Download or copy — click Copy to copy the text to your clipboard instantly, Download .txt for a plain text file, or Download .docx to save a proper Word document.

What Is OCR and How Does It Work?

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. It is a technology that analyses the shapes, patterns, and structures in an image and identifies individual characters — letters, numbers, punctuation — converting them into machine-readable text that you can copy, search, and edit.

This tool uses Tesseract.js, an open-source OCR engine originally developed by Hewlett-Packard and now maintained by Google. The tool exposes 16 language options from the available language data. The selected image is processed in the browser, while the OCR library and language data may be loaded from a third-party CDN first.

OCR works best on images with clear, well-lit text, good contrast between the text and background, and minimal distortion or perspective. Printed text from documents and screenshots usually gives better results. Handwritten text and low-quality photographs can be much less reliable, so review the output before using it.

What Can You Use Image to Text For?

• Digitise scanned documents — convert scanned contracts, letters, forms, and reports into editable Word documents without retyping everything manually.
• Extract text from screenshots — copy text from screenshots of websites, apps, PDFs, or any other source where you cannot select text directly.
• Convert photos of notes — photograph handwritten notes, lecture slides, or whiteboards and convert them to editable digital text.
• Process receipts and invoices — extract amounts, dates, and line items from receipt photos for expense tracking or data entry.
• Translate text from images — extract the text first using OCR, then paste it into a translation tool like Google Translate to translate image text into any language.
• Make images searchable — convert image-based documents into text files that can be searched, indexed, and referenced later.
• Accessibility — convert image-based content into text that can be read aloud by screen readers for users with visual impairments.
• Data entry automation — extract structured data from forms, tables, and printed documents to reduce manual data entry time.
• Social media text extraction — copy text from images shared on Instagram, Twitter, or WhatsApp where text cannot be selected.
• Book and article digitisation — photograph printed pages and convert them into editable text for note-taking, quotation, or archiving.

Tips for Getting the Best OCR Accuracy

• Use high-resolution images — blurry or low-resolution images are the biggest cause of OCR errors. Images taken from 20–30cm with a modern phone camera work well for most documents.
• Ensure good contrast — dark text on a light background gives the best results. Very light grey text on a white background or white text on a coloured background reduces accuracy.
• Keep the image flat and straight — photographs taken at an angle introduce perspective distortion that confuses the OCR engine. Lay documents flat and photograph them from directly above.
• Avoid shadows and glare — uneven lighting, shadows, and glare from a phone screen or light source covering part of the text reduce accuracy significantly.
• Select the correct language — Tesseract uses language-specific models to improve recognition. Always select the language that matches the text in your image.
• Use PNG screenshots for digital text — if you are extracting text from a digital source, a clear screenshot usually gives the OCR engine a cleaner input than a photo of a screen.
• Edit the output — OCR is very accurate but not perfect. Always review the extracted text and correct any errors before using it. The text box is fully editable before you download.

Download Extracted Text as a Word Document (.docx)

Most free OCR tools only let you copy text or download a plain .txt file. This tool goes further — you can download the extracted text directly as a Microsoft Word .docx file. The Word document preserves your line breaks and paragraph structure, making it immediately usable in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, or any other word processor.

This is particularly useful when digitising documents you need to edit, format, and share professionally — scanned contracts, printed reports, physical letters, or any document where you want the result in a proper word processing format rather than a plain text file.

The .docx file is assembled in the browser using JSZip after the OCR resources have loaded.

Supported Image Formats

• JPEG / JPG — photos from smartphones and cameras. Best for photographs of documents and printed text.
• PNG — screenshots and graphics. Best format for digital text — pixel-perfect quality, no compression artefacts.
• WebP — modern web image format, fully supported.
• GIF — single-frame GIF images supported.
• BMP — bitmap images, fully supported.

For scanned PDFs, the best approach is to take a screenshot of each page and run OCR on the screenshot. A dedicated PDF to Text tool is coming soon to pixelsTools.

Why Use This Free OCR Tool?

• Completely free — no account, no subscription, no daily limit, no credit system.
• Browser-based OCR — the selected image is processed in the browser after the OCR resources load.
• Editable output — fix OCR errors directly in the text box before downloading. No need to open a separate editor.
• Three export options — copy to clipboard, download .txt, or download .docx Word file.
• 16 language options — select the language that matches the printed text for better results.
• Word count and character count — shown automatically for every extraction.
• Works on mobile — take a photo on your phone and extract the text immediately in your mobile browser. No app needed.

Frequently Asked Questions