Create & edit · Free
Convert a picture to text – photo OCR on your device
Take a photo of a page, a sign or a label, or choose a picture you already have, and copy the text out of it. The recognition runs on your phone or computer, so the picture is never uploaded.
- No account
- Runs on your device
- Phone & desktop
Read text from a photo
Stays on your device
Take a photo or choose a picture
PNG, JPG, WebP, BMP or GIF · several at once · Ctrl+V or Cmd+V pastes
Your images
Each image is read in full. To read only part of it, drag across the picture; on a touch screen, tap Select part first.
Recognized text
Your images stay private. They are read on this device and never uploaded. The first time, the text engine (about 4 MB) and one language file (0.7–3 MB) load from this website.
Printed text works best. Neat handwriting is read only sometimes. PDF files and translation are not built in: take a screenshot of a PDF page, and paste the finished text into your translator.
How to convert a picture to text on your phone
Take or choose the picture
Take a photo opens the camera on a phone; Choose images opens your gallery or your files. You can add several pictures.
Leave the preparation on
Boost contrast and Enlarge small images are already switched on here because they help with photos. Turn a sideways picture with the rotate buttons, or select only the part you need.
Read and copy
Press Read text, check the result and copy it or save it as a .txt file.
How to take a photo that reads well
- Good light, no shadow. Daylight from the side works better than the flash, which leaves a bright spot on glossy paper.
- Straight on. Hold the phone parallel to the page so the lines stay straight and every letter stays sharp.
- Fill the frame. Get close enough that the text covers most of the picture, but keep the whole line in view.
- Hold still and focus. Tap the text on the screen before you take the photo; a blurry picture costs more words than anything else.
Transcribe a picture to text: pages, signs and labels
Typical jobs are a quote from a book page, a printed recipe, the dates on a poster, an ingredient list on a package or the contact details on a business card. Printed letters work best; neat handwriting is read only sometimes. Each picture comes back as plain text in the order you added them, with a line naming each file when there are several.
For a book with many pages, photograph one page at a time rather than a double page: the lines stay straighter and the two columns cannot get mixed up.
Picture to text on iPhone and Android
Open this page in Safari, Chrome or another current browser on your phone. Take a photo starts the camera, and Choose images lets you pick pictures from your photos. The text is recognized on the phone itself, so it works for private papers too.
iPhone Live Text and Google Lens are handy for a single word or number. This page is the better fit for longer text, several pictures at once, or when you want to correct the text and save it as a file.
What the photo preparation does
Picture to text recognition depends on clean, dark letters on a light background. Boost contrast makes the picture gray, turns the darkest parts black and the brightest white, and flips light text on a dark background. Enlarge small images scales pictures smaller than about 1,500 pixels on the long side up, at most four times. Both change only the copy that is read, never your photo, and you can switch them off for clean screenshots.
More AI Text Scanner pages
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a picture to text on my phone?
Open this page in your phone’s browser, tap Take a photo or Choose images, then Read text. When the text appears, tap Copy text and paste it wherever you need it.
Is this an online picture to text converter?
It is a web page, so there is nothing to install, but the picture itself is not sent online. The recognition runs on your device after the engine has loaded from this website.
Why does my photo give strange characters?
Usually because of blur, shadows, a busy background or the wrong language. Take the photo again in good light, select only the text and check that the language matches.
Is my photo saved anywhere?
No. The photo stays in the open page and is gone when you close or reload it. Only the language file is kept in your browser, so it does not download again.
