How to Extract Text From an Image
Optical Character Recognition — OCR — turns a picture of words into words you can actually select, search and edit. It is the difference between a screenshot you have to retype by hand and one you can paste straight into a document. This tool runs a full OCR engine inside your browser, which means the receipt, the ID card, the medical report or the private screenshot you are extracting text from never travels to anyone else's server.
Upload an image
Drop a screenshot, scan or photo containing text. It loads instantly and stays entirely on your device.
Pick the language
Choose the language of the text - English, Hindi, Spanish and more. Matching the language dramatically improves accuracy.
Copy or download
The extracted text appears in an editable box. Fix any mistakes, then copy it to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file.
How to Get the Best OCR Accuracy
OCR quality depends almost entirely on the input image, and a few habits make an enormous difference. Resolution matters most: text that is at least twenty pixels tall reads reliably, while tiny text in a low-resolution screenshot will produce garbled output no matter which engine you use. If you are photographing a document, get closer rather than zooming in afterwards.
Straight beats crooked. OCR engines expect horizontal lines of text. A photo taken at an angle, or a scan that came out rotated, dramatically lowers accuracy. Use our rotate tool to straighten the image first, and our crop tool to remove backgrounds and isolate just the text region.
Contrast helps. Dark text on a light background is what the engine is trained on. Faded receipts, glossy photos with glare, and text over busy images are genuinely hard. This tool is powered by Tesseract, the same open-source engine used in professional OCR pipelines, running locally via WebAssembly — but no engine can invent detail that the image does not contain.
Common Situations This Tool Solves
Copying text from a screenshot
Someone sends you information as an image and you need it as text. Instead of retyping it by hand, extract it in seconds and paste it wherever you need it.
Digitising printed documents
Receipts, invoices, letters and forms that exist only on paper can be photographed and turned into searchable, editable text ready for a spreadsheet or document.
Extracting text from a photo of a book or slide
Photographed a page in a library or a slide during a lecture? Pull the text out rather than squinting at the photo later.
Handling sensitive documents privately
ID cards, bank statements and medical reports should never be uploaded to a random OCR website. Because this engine runs inside your browser, those documents never leave your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I extract text from an image for free?
Upload your image, choose the language of the text, and click Extract Text. The result appears in an editable box you can copy or download as a .txt file. No signup, no limits, completely free.
Is my image uploaded to a server for OCR?
No. The OCR engine runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly. Your image never leaves your device, which is exactly why this tool is safe for ID cards, bank statements and confidential documents.
How accurate is the text extraction?
Accuracy depends heavily on the image. Clear, high-resolution, straight text on a plain background is extracted very reliably. Blurry photos, tiny text, glare and handwriting are much harder. The confidence score shown after each run gives you a rough guide.
Which languages are supported?
English, Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Arabic and Chinese are available, plus a combined English and Hindi mode. Choosing the correct language makes a substantial difference to accuracy.
Can OCR read handwriting?
Handwriting recognition is a fundamentally harder problem than printed text and results are usually poor. This engine is built for printed and typed text - screenshots, scans, receipts and documents.
Why did the extraction produce garbled text?
Almost always because the text in the image is too small, too blurry, or at an angle. Try a higher-resolution image, crop tightly around the text, and straighten it first with our rotate tool.
Can I edit the extracted text before copying it?
Yes. The result appears in a fully editable text box. OCR is rarely perfect, so fixing a few characters before you copy or download is normal and expected.
Why is the first run slower than the second?
The OCR engine and its language data are downloaded to your browser on the first run, which takes a few seconds. After that it is cached, so subsequent extractions start almost instantly.
Can I extract text from a PDF?
Convert the PDF page to an image first using our PDF to PNG tool, then run it through this OCR tool. PNG at 300 DPI gives the engine the sharpest possible input.
Does it work on iPhone and Android?
Yes. Open this page in Safari or Chrome, take or select a photo, and extract the text directly on your phone. Large images may take a little longer on mobile hardware.
Can I extract text from a photo of a screen?
Yes, though photographing a screen introduces glare, moire patterns and reflections that hurt accuracy. Taking a proper screenshot instead, where possible, produces far better results.
Is this OCR tool really free?
Completely free, with no page limits, no signup and no premium wall. Everything runs in your browser, so there are no server costs to pass on.
Last updated: July 11, 2026 · FlipMyFormat OCR Tool
Written and maintained by the FlipMyFormat team