What types of text can OCR extract from images?

OCR works best on clearly printed or typed text in standard fonts. Handwritten text, decorative fonts, and very small print produce less reliable results.

What image formats does the OCR tool support?

JPG, JPEG, PNG, and WebP are supported. For scanned documents stored as PDF, use the PDF to Text tool instead.

How accurate is the text extraction?

For high-quality scans and clear screenshots, accuracy is high — typically 95%+ for standard printed text. Image blur, low contrast, and unusual fonts reduce accuracy.

Does the tool preserve formatting like paragraphs and tables?

Basic paragraph breaks are preserved. Complex layouts, tables, and multi-column formatting may require manual cleanup after extraction.

Are my images uploaded to a server for OCR?

Processing details depend on the tool implementation. For sensitive documents, use the PDF to Text tool which is designed with privacy considerations for documents.

Extract Text from Images Using OCR – Free Online

Use optical character recognition (OCR) to extract text from photos, screenshots, and scanned images. No retyping, no signup — paste or upload your image and get the text instantly.

Upload Image

📷

Drop an image here, paste from clipboard, or click to browse

JPG, PNG, BMP, WebP, GIF • Max 1024.00 MB

🔍

Powered by Tesseract.js

Industry-leading open-source OCR engine running entirely in your browser. Supports 100+ languages.

📋

Paste from Clipboard

Take a screenshot and press Ctrl+V (or ⌘+V on Mac) to paste directly — no file saving needed.

🔒

100% Private

All OCR processing happens locally in your browser. No images are uploaded to any server.

When to Use Image to Text

Screenshots and receipts

Extract text from UI screenshots, receipts, or billing statements you saved as images rather than PDFs.

Scanned documents

Digitize printed notes, letters, forms, and books by extracting the text from a scanned photo without retyping.

Business cards and signs

Capture a business card or physical sign with your phone and extract the text — names, addresses, phone numbers — directly.

How OCR Works

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) analyzes the shapes of characters in an image and converts them into machine-readable text. Modern OCR engines use pattern recognition and machine learning trained on millions of text samples to identify characters accurately across different fonts, sizes, and page layouts.

The key factors that affect accuracy are image resolution, contrast between text and background, and font regularity. A high-contrast scan at 200 DPI or higher gives the best results. Blurry photos, low-contrast text on patterned backgrounds, and handwritten content are the most common causes of extraction errors.

Tips for Better OCR Results

Take photos of documents in good lighting with the camera held parallel to the page — angled shots produce skewed text that is harder to recognize. Crop out unnecessary margins before uploading to help the engine focus on the text area. If the source document is low-contrast, increase brightness and contrast using the Image Converter before running OCR. For scanned PDFs, the PDF to Text tool with OCR support is a better choice than converting the PDF to images first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of text can OCR extract from images?: OCR works best on clearly printed or typed text in standard fonts. Handwritten text, decorative fonts, and very small print produce less reliable results.
What image formats does the OCR tool support?: JPG, JPEG, PNG, and WebP are supported. For scanned documents stored as PDF, use the PDF to Text tool instead.
How accurate is the text extraction?: For high-quality scans and clear screenshots, accuracy is high — typically 95%+ for standard printed text. Image blur, low contrast, and unusual fonts reduce accuracy.
Does the tool preserve formatting like paragraphs and tables?: Basic paragraph breaks are preserved. Complex layouts, tables, and multi-column formatting may require manual cleanup after extraction.
Are my images uploaded to a server for OCR?: Processing details depend on the tool implementation. For sensitive documents, use the PDF to Text tool which is designed with privacy considerations for documents.

Image Tools