Image to Text (OCR)
Upload an image to recognize and extract its text with on-device OCR — copy the result with no files ever leaving your browser.
Drop an image here or click to upload
JPG, PNG, WebP · Max 25 MB
How to use Image to Text (OCR)
Extract text from images, screenshots, and scanned photos using on-device OCR (Optical Character Recognition) powered by Tesseract.js. Supports English and a wide range of languages. Your image is never uploaded to any server — all recognition runs locally in your browser. Copy or download the recognized text as a plain text file.
- Upload your image (JPG, PNG, WebP, or any common format) using the file picker or drag-and-drop.
- Select the language of the text in the image for best accuracy.
- Recognition begins automatically — a progress bar shows the OCR status.
- Review the extracted text in the editable text area and correct any errors.
- Copy the text to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file.
Your data never leaves your device — 100% private processing.
How OCR works: from pixels to text
Tesseract.js (the JavaScript port of Google's Tesseract OCR engine) processes the image through several stages: binarization (converting to black-and-white for sharper character boundaries), layout analysis (detecting text regions, paragraphs, and lines), character segmentation (isolating individual characters), and neural-network recognition (matching character shapes to known glyphs). For printed text at 150+ DPI, Tesseract achieves high accuracy. Handwriting, decorative fonts, and very small text reduce accuracy. For best results, use clear, high-contrast images of printed text on a plain background at a resolution of at least 100 DPI.
Language selection and recognition accuracy
Tesseract uses language-specific trained data files to recognise characters, ligatures, and common word patterns for each script. Selecting the correct language dramatically improves accuracy — misidentifying a French document as English causes it to misread accented characters and common French words. For multi-language documents, Tesseract supports combined language codes. Printed Latin-script languages (English, French, German, Spanish) achieve the highest accuracy. Arabic and Chinese require separate trained models and may be slower to load. Handwritten text of any language is inherently less reliable than printed text for current OCR engines.
| Language family | Accuracy (printed) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Latin script (EN, FR, DE, ES) | Very high (95–99%) | Best supported; fastest |
| Cyrillic (Russian, etc.) | High (90–95%) | Good support |
| CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) | Moderate (80–90%) | Requires larger model |
| Arabic / RTL scripts | Moderate (75–88%) | Right-to-left; specialised model |
| Handwriting (any) | Variable (50–80%) | Less reliable; use clear scans |
Glossary
- OCR
- Optical Character Recognition — the process of converting images of text into machine-readable text characters.
- Tesseract
- An open-source OCR engine originally developed by HP and maintained by Google, considered one of the most accurate open OCR engines.
- Binarization
- Converting a grayscale image to pure black and white to improve character boundary detection in OCR preprocessing.
- DPI
- Dots Per Inch — a measure of image resolution; higher DPI improves OCR accuracy for scanned documents (150+ DPI recommended).
Related reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Get weekly tool tips & updates
New tools, power-user tips, and productivity hacks — delivered free every Friday.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe with one click.
Why use Image to Text (OCR)?
- Lossless and lossy compression options to balance quality vs file size
- Supports all major formats: JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF
- Batch operations keep filenames and folder structure intact
- Runs client-side — no image data ever leaves your device
Common use cases
- Resize product photos before uploading to an online store
- Compress images to pass file-size limits on job application portals
- Convert PNG screenshots to WebP for faster web pages
- Create thumbnails for YouTube or social media posts
- Remove backgrounds from profile photos
Related Image Tools
PDF & Image OCR
Extract text from scanned PDFs and images online with OCR. Recognizes text in pictures and scanned documents right in your browser. Free and private.
Image to PDF
Convert JPG, PNG, and WebP images to PDF online. Combine multiple images into one PDF document. Free, private, runs in your browser.
Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs, and estimate reading time. Free, instant, and private — ideal for essays, articles, and posts.
Compress Image
Compress JPG, PNG, WebP images online. Reduce file size by up to 90% without visible quality loss. Free, private, runs in your browser.
Resize Image
Resize any image online by pixels or percentage. Free, private, and instant — no upload needed, and the original aspect ratio is preserved.
Convert Image Format
Convert images between PNG, JPG, and WebP instantly. Free, private, and fast — everything runs in your browser and no files are ever uploaded.
Explore all Image Tools.