Extract Text from Image
Selected Image
Extracted Text
What is Extract Text from Image (OCR)?
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition — a technology that analyses the pixel patterns in an image and converts them into machine-readable, copy-paste-able text. Our tool uses Tesseract.js, the industry-leading open-source OCR engine originally developed by HP and now maintained by Google, running entirely inside your browser. That means your image is never uploaded to any server — everything happens on your own device, making it completely private and significantly faster than cloud-based OCR services.
Simply upload a photo, screenshot, scanned document, or any image that contains text, and our tool will return all the readable text within seconds. You can then copy the extracted text, paste it into a document, translate it, search through it, or use it however you need.
How to Extract Text from an Image
Upload your image
Click "Upload Image" or drag and drop a JPEG, PNG, or WEBP file. Your image is read locally — it is never sent to any external server.
Wait for OCR processing
Tesseract.js analyses every line of text in the image. A progress bar shows the completion status. Most images are processed in 2–10 seconds depending on the amount of text and your device speed.
Review extracted text
The tool displays the raw extracted text alongside a structured table view where applicable. You can review the output before copying.
Copy and use
Click Copy to copy the text to your clipboard and paste it wherever you need — a document, spreadsheet, translation tool, or search engine.
Who Uses Image-to-Text Extraction?
Students & Researchers
Extract text from scanned textbook pages, research paper screenshots, or handwritten notes so you can search, highlight, and quote without retyping everything manually.
Business & Office Work
Convert scanned contracts, invoices, receipts, and business cards into editable text. Save hours of manual data entry for accounting and CRM systems.
Developers & Data Entry
Pull text from UI screenshots, error messages, or log images for debugging. Automate data pipelines that receive image-format inputs.
Language Learning & Translation
Photograph a foreign-language menu, sign, or book page and extract the text so you can paste it into Google Translate or DeepL instantly.
Accessibility
Convert images of text into plain text for screen readers. Help visually impaired users access content that was shared as an image rather than real text.
Legal & Government Documents
Extract text from scanned court orders, government notices, and official letters to make them searchable and quotable in legal briefs.
Social Media & Screenshots
Copy text from memes, viral screenshots, or social media posts without retyping. Useful for journalists, fact-checkers, and content creators.
E-commerce & Inventory
Extract product codes, prices, and descriptions from catalogue images or supplier PDF screenshots and import them into spreadsheets.
Supported Image Formats
JPEG / JPG
The most common format for photographs, camera images, and scanned documents. OCR works best on JPEG images with clear, high-contrast text.
PNG
Lossless format ideal for screenshots, UI captures, and graphics. PNG images often have sharper text edges, resulting in higher OCR accuracy.
WEBP
Google's modern web format. Our tool supports WEBP images from web screenshots and modern app exports.
Tips for Better OCR Accuracy
- Use high-resolution images — at least 300 DPI for scanned documents. Low-resolution images produce more recognition errors.
- Ensure good contrast between text and background. Black text on a white background gives the highest accuracy. Avoid coloured text on coloured backgrounds.
- Keep the image as straight as possible. Tilted or rotated text reduces accuracy significantly. Most modern phones have a document-scan mode that auto-straightens images.
- Avoid blurry images. Motion blur and out-of-focus captures are the most common causes of OCR failure. Use a stable surface when photographing documents.
- For handwritten text, print clearly. Tesseract is optimised for printed/typed text. Handwriting recognition is improving but still less accurate than printed text extraction.
- Crop closely to the text area. Removing large empty margins and irrelevant image areas speeds up processing and can improve accuracy.
- Use PNG instead of JPEG for screenshots. JPEG compression introduces artefacts around character edges that confuse OCR engines.
100% Private — Your Images Never Leave Your Device
Unlike many online OCR tools that upload your image to a remote server for processing, our tool runs Tesseract.js entirely in your browser. The image data is processed by your own CPU and RAM. Nothing is transmitted over the network. This is especially important for sensitive documents such as:
- Passports and ID cards
- Bank statements and financial records
- Medical reports and prescriptions
- Legal contracts and agreements
- Personal correspondence
- Confidential business documents
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this OCR tool completely free?
Yes. There are no charges, no daily limits, no account required, and no watermarks. You can extract text from as many images as you like at no cost.
What languages does the OCR tool support?
The tool currently uses the English-trained Tesseract model (eng.traineddata). It works best on English text. Numbers, punctuation, and common Latin characters from other European languages are also recognised well.
How accurate is the text extraction?
For clear, printed text on high-contrast backgrounds, accuracy is typically 95–99%. Accuracy drops for low-resolution images, handwriting, unusual fonts, heavy image compression artefacts, and text on complex backgrounds.
Can it extract text from handwritten notes?
Tesseract can recognise neat, clearly printed handwriting with reasonable accuracy. Cursive or heavily stylised handwriting is harder and may produce partial results. For best results with handwriting, use a high-resolution scan and write in clear block letters.
Does the tool work offline?
Once the page has loaded (which downloads the Tesseract.js library and language data), it works without an internet connection. This is because all processing is done in your browser.
What is the maximum image size I can use?
There is no hard limit enforced by the tool. Very large images (20 MB+) may take longer to process and require more device memory. For best performance, use images under 5 MB.
Can I extract text from a PDF?
This tool processes image files (JPEG, PNG, WEBP). For PDF text extraction, take a screenshot or export individual PDF pages as images first, then upload them here.
Why is some text missing from the output?
OCR may miss text that is very small (under 10 pt equivalent), overlapping other elements, heavily stylised, part of a watermark, or in a language the model was not trained on. Improving image quality and contrast usually recovers missing text.