Image to Text Converter

Extract text from images using OCR. Upload a photo of a document, screenshot, or any image containing text. Supports 14 languages.

Powered by Tesseract OCR 14 Languages Instant Processing

Tap to choose an image

or

JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP, GIF • Max 20 MB

Your files are secure. Images are processed and deleted immediately after text extraction. Nothing is stored.

How to Extract Text from an Image

1

Upload

Drag and drop an image containing text, or click Choose Image to browse your device. Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP, and GIF.

2

Extract

Select the language of the text in your image, then click Extract Text. OCR processing takes 5–30 seconds depending on image size.

3

Copy or Download

Review the extracted text, edit if needed, then Copy to clipboard or Download as a .txt file. That’s it.

What is OCR?

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that recognizes text within images and converts it into editable, searchable digital text. The process works by analyzing the shapes and patterns of characters in an image, comparing them to known letter forms, and producing the corresponding text output.

Modern OCR engines like Tesseract (which powers this tool) use neural networks trained on millions of text samples. They can recognize printed text in dozens of languages, handle various fonts and sizes, and work with photographs, scanned documents, screenshots, and more.

Common Use Cases

Digitize scanned documents

Convert scanned paper documents, receipts, invoices, and contracts into editable text. Search, edit, and organize content that was previously locked in image form.

Extract text from screenshots

Pull text from error messages, chat screenshots, code snippets, or any on-screen content. Faster than retyping and eliminates transcription errors.

Convert photos of text

Photograph a page from a book, whiteboard notes, or a sign, then extract the text. Useful for students, researchers, and anyone who needs to digitize physical text quickly.

Translate text in images

Extract text from images in one language, then paste it into a translation tool. Useful when traveling or reading foreign-language documents that are only available as images.

Supported Image Formats

FormatExtensionsOCR Notes
JPEG.jpg, .jpegBest for photos. Compression artifacts may reduce accuracy on small text.
PNG.pngIdeal for screenshots and documents. Lossless compression preserves text clarity.
WebP.webpModern web format. Converted to PNG internally before OCR for best results.
TIFF.tiff, .tifStandard for scanned documents. Multi-page TIFF uses first page only.
BMP.bmpUncompressed bitmap. Perfect quality for OCR but large file sizes.
GIF.gifLimited to 256 colors. Works for simple text but not ideal for photos of text.

Supported Languages

Our OCR engine supports 14 languages. Select the correct language before extraction for best accuracy:

English
Français
Deutsch
Español
Italiano
Português
Русский
Українська
Polski
Nederlands
Türkçe
العربية
日本語
한국어

Tips for Better OCR Results

  • Use high resolution — images with at least 300 DPI produce the most accurate results. Phone cameras typically capture at 72–96 DPI, so zoom in on the text area when photographing.
  • Ensure good contrast — dark text on a light background works best. Avoid shadows, glare, and colored backgrounds that reduce contrast.
  • Keep text straight — while the OCR engine handles slight skew, heavily rotated or curved text reduces accuracy significantly.
  • Choose the right language — selecting the correct language before extraction improves accuracy by 10–30%, especially for non-Latin scripts.
  • Crop to text area — if your image contains both text and photos/graphics, crop to just the text area for best results. Use our Crop Image tool first if needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

OCR is a technology that recognizes text within images and converts it into editable, searchable text. It works by analyzing the shapes and patterns of characters in the image and matching them to known letter forms. Our tool uses Tesseract, an open-source OCR engine developed by Google.
JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and TIFF. For best OCR accuracy, use PNG or TIFF — these lossless formats preserve text clarity. JPEG works well for high-resolution photos but heavy compression can reduce accuracy on small text.
OCR works best with printed text. Handwritten text recognition is limited — neat, block-letter handwriting may produce usable results, but cursive or messy handwriting will have low accuracy. For handwritten text, dedicated handwriting recognition (HTR) tools are recommended.
For clear, high-resolution photos of printed text, accuracy is typically 95–99%. Factors that reduce accuracy include low resolution, poor lighting, unusual fonts, complex page layouts, and text on textured or colored backgrounds. Selecting the correct language improves accuracy by 10–30%.
Yes. Convertio.com offers free image to text conversion with no watermarks, no registration, and no email required. Images are processed on our servers and deleted immediately after OCR extraction. Nothing is stored.

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