Image to Text — free OCR in your browser

How to extract text from an image

Turning a picture into text takes a few seconds with this online OCR — and it all happens on your own computer:

1. Add your image. Drag a photo, screenshot or scan onto the box above, or click to pick a file (PNG, JPG, WEBP, BMP or GIF).
2. Check the preview. Make sure the text is reasonably sharp and upright — clear, high-contrast images give the best results.
3. Click "Extract text". The OCR engine downloads once, then reads the image right in your browser. A progress bar shows how it's going.
4. Copy your text. When it finishes, the recognised text appears in the box. Hit Copy text and paste it wherever you need it.

Because everything runs in your browser, your image is never uploaded — making this a private way to convert a photo to text or grab text from a screenshot.

When to use the desktop app instead

In-browser OCR is perfect for a one-off snippet. For real work, the free Kaizen OCR & PDF desktop app is built for the heavy lifting:

• Higher accuracy. It runs up to four OCR engines and picks the best result — far more reliable on messy photos, low contrast and small fonts.
• 100+ languages. Recognise non-English and mixed-language pages, including right-to-left scripts, instead of English only.
• Batch & folders. Convert dozens or hundreds of images and multi-page scanned PDFs in one go, with searchable output.
• Sensitive documents. Everything stays fully offline on your PC — ideal for contracts, IDs, medical or financial scans you'd rather not run through a web tool.
• Handwriting & scanned PDFs. Better handling of handwritten notes and turning paper scans into editable, searchable text.

Frequently asked questions

Yes — completely free and unlimited, with no signup. The OCR runs locally in your browser, so there are no accounts, watermarks or per-page limits.

No. The image never leaves your device. Recognition runs entirely in your browser using on-device JavaScript (Tesseract.js), so your photos and screenshots are never sent to us or stored anywhere.

This browser tool extracts English text by default. For 100+ languages, mixed-language pages and right-to-left scripts, use the free Kaizen OCR & PDF desktop app for Windows.

This in-browser OCR is tuned for printed and typed text and isn't reliable for handwriting. For handwriting recognition, scanned PDFs and higher accuracy, use Kaizen OCR & PDF for Windows.