How to extract text from a picture

Extract Text from Image · 3 min read

A photo of a document, a picture of a menu, a snapshot of a whiteboard, the text is right there but locked in the image. Here's how to extract it in one click and get editable text back.

Pictures don't carry any text data, just colours. OCR looks at the shapes of the letters and rebuilds them as characters, so a photo becomes text you can copy, edit and search.

The fastest way: a one-click Chrome extension

Extract Text from Image is a free OCR Chrome extension that reads pictures right in your browser.

1. Add the extension to Chrome.
2. Drop in the picture, or paste it with Ctrl+V.
3. It reads the text on your device in a second or two.
4. Copy the text, or download it as a clean .txt file.

It reads dozens of languages, and if it picks the wrong one you can re-run the same picture in another language with a single click.

What reads well, and what doesn't

Clear, printed text, documents, signs, slides, screenshots, comes out clean. Very stylized fonts, low-light photos and handwriting are harder for any OCR, including this one. A sharp, well-lit picture always gives the best result.

More text-from-image guides

• How to copy text from an image
• How to copy text from a screenshot
• How to convert a JPG or PNG to text