How to Copy Text from an Image, Screenshot or Scan
Get editable text out of photos, screenshots and scanned PDFs on any device. Built-in phone options, free OCR in your browser, and tips for better accuracy.
Retyping text from a photo of a document, a screenshot or a scanned letter is slow and error-prone. OCR (optical character recognition) does it for you.
On any device: OCR in your browser
- Open Image to text.
- Add one or more images, or a scanned PDF.
- Copy the text or download it as a .txt file.
The recognition engine runs inside your browser, so documents like bank letters or ID scans aren't uploaded. The first time, it downloads about 6 MB of recognition data, which is then cached.
Built into your phone
iPhone: open the photo in Photos and press and hold on the text (Live Text), then tap Copy. Android: open the image in Google Photos and tap Lens, then Text. These work well for a quick sentence; for multi-page scans or many images, the browser tool is quicker.
Get better results
- Crop to the text. Busy backgrounds confuse OCR. Use Crop image first.
- Shoot straight on with good light, and avoid shadows across the page.
- Use the largest image you have. Small screenshots of small text are hard to read.
- Sharpen soft photos lightly with Sharpen image.
Scanned PDFs
If PDF to text returns nothing, the PDF is a scan. Use Scanned PDF to text, which reads every page with OCR.
Always proofread
Even good OCR confuses characters like 0/O and 1/l. Check numbers, names and amounts before you rely on them.