Extract Text from a Photo - Free OCR
Extract text from a photo, screenshot or scanned page and get editable words back in seconds. 56 languages, doubtful words flagged, DOCX or TXT download.
- Free to use, no login
- Runs locally in your browser
- Clean output, no stamp
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Copy the text out of a picture
Grab the picture: a phone shot from your gallery, a scanned sheet, or a screenshot pasted straight from the clipboard.
Tick the language(s) printed in it, up to four, and press the button to start the OCR.
Fix anything marked orange or red, then hit Copy text or save the result as a .txt or .docx file.
What makes this OCR toolbox handy for real paperwork
Words mapped back to the picture
The original shot stays on screen with a frame around each word it found. Green frames are safe, orange and red ones deserve a second look, and one click puts the cursor on that word in the editable text.
Made for imperfect snapshots
Grey, low-contrast pictures get stretched to full contrast, white-on-black app screens are flipped, tiny print is blown up and scanned again, and a page shot sideways or upside down is retried in other orientations.
Layout modes for receipts and forms
Keep the line breaks of the original, merge lines into flowing paragraphs, or line up columns with spaces so prices stay next to their items. You can also say whether the picture holds a full page, loose labels or one caption.
A whole pile in one session
Load many pictures together. A side list shows each file with its own confidence score, and the finished set can be exported as one DOCX with a new page per image, one combined TXT, or a ZIP of separate text files.
When to extract text from a photo (OCR) instead of retyping it
Retyping a page you can already see is slow and full of typos. Point this toolbox at a picture and the printed words come back as plain, editable characters you can paste into an email, a spreadsheet or a report. Here is how different people put it to work.
Students and teachers
Snap a page of a library book, a whiteboard after class or a slide from a lecture, then drop the quote into your notes. Teachers can lift an exercise from an old printed workbook and edit it into a fresh worksheet in Word.
Offices, HR and freelancers
Pull a supplier name and total off a crumpled receipt with the column mode, copy an address from a business card, or read the details of a CV that only arrived as a phone picture. Freelancers can grab error messages and settings from a client screenshot without asking for a text version.
Real estate and field work
Agents photograph listing sheets, meter plates and notices on site, then paste the wording into a listing back at the desk.
Limits worth knowing
- Huge photos are scaled down to about 16 megapixels before reading, which is plenty for a full page.
- A rotated page is only re-tried in other orientations when the first pass scores poorly.
- One run accepts at most four languages; pick only the ones actually printed.
- Multi-page scans saved as PDF belong in the PDF OCR tool, which also builds a searchable PDF.
Nothing is stored on a server, so you can close the tab once you have copied or saved your text.
Other picture tools in the box
Questions people ask about this task
How do I get text off a picture taken on my phone?
Open this page on the phone, tap the upload button and choose the photo from your gallery. iPhone HEIC pictures are converted on the device first, then the words appear in a box you can copy from.
Does my photo leave my computer or phone?
No. Recognition is done by an OCR engine running in the browser tab. What gets downloaded is the trained recognition file for each language you tick, and it is cached so later visits start faster.
Why did some words come out wrong?
Usually the wrong language was ticked, the shot is blurred or tilted, or the letters sit on a busy pattern. Retake or crop the picture, check the language list and run it again; the colour of each frame tells you where to look.
Can it handle a page printed in two languages?
Yes. Tick both, or up to four in total, before you start. Fewer languages make the job quicker and the guesses more reliable.
Can I turn several photographed pages into one Word file?
Yes. Add all the pictures at once, review them one by one, then pick One DOCX. Every picture starts on its own page, with its file name as a heading if you leave that box ticked.
Does it work on handwritten notes?
It is tuned for printed and on-screen lettering. Very neat block capitals may partly work, but expect many orange and red frames on handwriting and plan to retype those parts.