You have a screenshot of a table, a photo of a printed page or a scanned receipt — and you need the words as editable text, not pixels. This free image to text converter uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read the text in your picture and turn it into copyable text. It runs in your browser, supports 25 languages including Hindi, Arabic, Japanese and Spanish, and your image is never uploaded to TextAgo.
What is OCR and how does it work?
OCR stands for optical character recognition. The software looks at the shapes in an image, finds lines and words, and decides which letter each shape most likely represents. Modern engines compare shapes with a trained language model, which is why choosing the correct language matters: the engine can then prefer real words over random strings of letters.
TextAgo uses the open-source Tesseract engine compiled to run inside your browser. That means the heavy work happens on your own phone or computer. There is no server queue and no file size limit imposed by us — only the memory your device has.
How to extract text from an image — step by step
- Add your image. Drag it onto the box, click to browse, or paste a screenshot straight from the clipboard with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac). You can add several images and remove any thumbnail with the × button.
- Choose the language of the text. If the picture mixes your language with English, tick Also detect English.
- Keep “Enhance image” on for most photos. It converts the picture to grayscale, stretches the contrast and enlarges small images to make letters easier to read. Turn it off for already clean, high-contrast screenshots if the result looks worse.
- Press Extract text. A progress bar shows each stage. The first time you use a language, its data downloads first.
- Review and edit. The result appears in an editable box. Fix any mistakes, then copy it, download it as .txt or send it to the TextAgo notepad.
How to get the most accurate OCR results
Accuracy depends far more on the picture than on the software. Small changes before you upload make a noticeable difference:
- Use a straight, flat photo. Tilted or curved pages (such as the inside of a thick book) distort letters. Take the photo from directly above.
- Light the page evenly. Shadows and glare create false shapes. Daylight from a window usually works better than a flash.
- Prefer higher resolution. As a rough guide, letters should be at least 20 pixels tall. Screenshots on a high-resolution display are ideal.
- Crop to the text. Remove borders, hands and desk edges so the engine does not try to read them.
- Choose the right language. Reading Spanish text with the English model creates many errors on accents and special letters.
- Avoid compression. Heavily compressed JPEGs, such as images forwarded many times in chat apps, blur letter edges.
Image to text in different languages
The tool offers English, Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Polish, Thai, Vietnamese, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu and Ukrainian. Scripts with many similar-looking shapes — such as Hindi’s Devanagari or Chinese characters — benefit most from a large, sharp image. Right-to-left languages like Arabic and Urdu are supported, though connected letters can be harder than Latin text, so expect to proofread.
What OCR can and cannot do
| Works well | Needs care |
|---|---|
| Printed documents, books and letters | Handwriting — results are often poor |
| Screenshots of text, chats and web pages | Multi-column layouts — lines may be read across columns |
| Typed receipts and labels | Tables — text is extracted, but the cell structure is not preserved |
| Street signs and menus in clear light | Decorative fonts, very small or low-contrast text |
If you extract data from a table, paste the result into the Text to Excel tool afterwards to rebuild columns quickly.
Common uses for converting pictures to text
Copying text that cannot be selected
Some slides, scanned PDFs and app screens show text you cannot highlight. A screenshot plus OCR lets you copy it.
Digitising notes and paperwork
Photograph a printed page or a whiteboard with typed text, convert it, and store it as searchable text rather than as an image.
Studying and research
Extract a paragraph from a textbook photo to quote it, translate it, or read it aloud with the Text to Speech tool.
Working with receipts and invoices
Pull amounts and dates from a photographed receipt into your records. Always double-check numbers, since a misread digit changes the meaning.
Reading text in another language
Extract foreign text, then use the Translate Image Text tool to get a translation in one flow.
Using image to text on a phone
Most people photograph documents with their phone, so it helps to know a few mobile habits. Hold the phone parallel to the page and let the camera focus before you tap. Turn on the grid lines in your camera app, because they make it easier to keep the page straight. If your phone has a “document” or “scan” mode, use it — these modes flatten the page, remove shadows and crop automatically, which is exactly what OCR likes.
When you open this page on a phone, tap the box and choose either Photo Library or Take Photo. After the text appears, you can edit it right on the screen, then copy it into a messaging app, an email or a note. Large photos from modern cameras are handled automatically: the tool reduces extremely big pictures to a size that is fast to read while keeping the letters sharp.
OCR compared with selecting text in a PDF
If a PDF was created on a computer, you can usually select and copy its text directly, and that is always more accurate than OCR. OCR is for the other cases: scans, photographs, screenshots and images saved inside documents, where the page is only a picture of text. A quick test: try to highlight a word. If you can, copy it normally. If you cannot, convert the page to an image and use this tool.
You can also keep both worlds together. Open a scanned PDF in the Document Viewer to read it, take a screenshot of the part you need, and paste the screenshot here with Ctrl+V. It takes a few seconds and avoids installing any scanning software.
Privacy and security
Your image is processed by software running inside your own browser tab. It is not uploaded to TextAgo. To work, your browser downloads the OCR program and, for each language you use, a language-data file from public servers; those servers can see your IP address and basic browser details, but not your pictures or the text you extract. After the first use, your browser can keep the data in its cache, which makes later runs faster. For very sensitive documents, such as identity papers, remember that anything you copy to the clipboard may be visible to other apps on your device.
Troubleshooting
The text is full of strange symbols
The language is probably wrong. Select the language that matches the text and try again. If the image is blurry, retake or crop it.
Nothing was found in the image
The picture may be too small, too low-contrast or contain only handwriting. Try a larger image, turn Enhance image on, and make sure the text is horizontal.
It is very slow
The first run downloads language data (a few megabytes per language). Very large images also take longer; the tool automatically scales extremely big pictures down to a sensible size.
Lines run together or are in the wrong order
Crop each column of a multi-column page and process them as separate images, then combine the results.
Frequently asked questions about image to text
How do I convert a picture to text for free?
Open this page, add the image, choose its language and press Extract text. There is no sign-up and no watermark.
Can I extract text from a screenshot on my phone?
Yes. Choose the screenshot from your gallery. On many phones you can also share it to your browser first and then select it on this page.
Does it work with Hindi or other Indian languages?
Yes — Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Urdu are available. Use a clear, high-resolution image for the best result.
Is the converted text 100% accurate?
No OCR is perfect. Clean printed text is usually very accurate, while photos with shadows, small fonts or handwriting need proofreading.
Are my images stored anywhere?
No. They are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to TextAgo.
Can I convert many images together?
Yes. Add several images and they are processed one after another, with the results joined into one editable text.