How to copy text from an image on a Chromebook

Extract Text from Image · 4 min read

On Windows or a Mac you would install something. On ChromeOS you cannot, and that changes the answer: on a Chromebook the browser is the operating system, so the tool has to live in the browser too.

Why a Chromebook is a different case

Most OCR advice tells you to download an app. A Chromebook runs web apps, Android apps and Linux containers, and none of those is a comfortable route for the small everyday job of grabbing a few lines out of a picture. There is no Snipping Tool with text actions, no desktop scanner suite. What a Chromebook does have, natively and fully, is Chrome extensions. That makes an extension the shortest path rather than a workaround.

Option 1: a Chrome extension (fastest)

Extract Text from Image is a free extension that reads any picture open in your browser and hands back the text. The recognition runs on the device, so the picture is not uploaded, which matters if the Chromebook is a school or work machine.

1. Add the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Open the image, a photo, a screenshot, a scanned page in a tab.
3. Click the extension icon. It reads the text.
4. Copy all, or download a .txt file to your Files app.

Option 2: Google Lens in the Photos app

Open the picture in the Photos app and look for the Lens or copy text action. It works well on clean photographs of printed text. The friction is the trip: the image has to be in Photos first, you leave whatever you were doing, and the result comes back as a selection you then have to move across. Fine once, tedious as a habit.

Option 3: screenshot first, then read it

If the text is on screen but not selectable, grab it as an image:

• Ctrl + Show windows captures the whole screen.
• Add Shift to drag a box around just the part you want.

The file lands in Downloads. Open it in a tab, run the extension on it, and you have the text. Same flow as copying text from a screenshot anywhere else.

What about PDFs and blurry shots

Two neighbouring cases come up constantly on a Chromebook, for the same reason: no desktop software to fall back on.

• A table inside a PDF. OCR gives you loose text, not columns. To keep the grid, use a converter instead, see the best PDF to Excel Chrome extension or the guide for a scanned PDF.
• The photo is too soft to read. If OCR is guessing at the letters, clean the image up first with an image enhancer extension, then run the text extraction again.

Related guides

• How to copy text from an image on a PC
• How to copy text from an image
• How to extract text from a picture
• The best OCR Chrome extension