Extract Text From Image: How to Copy Text From Photos (Phone, PC and Online)

Retyping text from a photo, screenshot or printed page is slow and error-prone. Optical character recognition (OCR) can read the letters for you in seconds. Below are four reliable ways to extract text from image files — online on any device, on iPhone, on Android and on a computer — plus practical tips to get cleaner results. The quickest option for most people is our free Image to Text converter.

What is OCR?

OCR software looks at the shapes in an image, finds lines and words, and matches each shape to a character. Modern engines such as Tesseract — an open-source OCR engine that our tool runs in your browser through Tesseract.js — support more than 100 languages. OCR works best on printed text; handwriting, decorative fonts and blurry photos are much harder.

Method 1: Extract text from image files online (any device)

1. Open the Image to Text (OCR) tool.
2. Choose an image, drag it onto the box, or copy a screenshot and press Ctrl+V on the page.
3. Pick the language of the text. For mixed text, choose a combination such as English + Urdu.
4. Press Extract text, wait a few seconds and proofread the result.
5. Copy the text or download it as a .txt file.

Because recognition runs on your device, the image is not uploaded to our server — useful for personal documents. The first time you use a language, your browser downloads the engine and language data (a few megabytes), so the first run is slower than the next ones.

Method 2: On iPhone and iPad with Live Text

Apple’s Live Text is built into iPhone XS, iPhone XR and later on iOS 15 or later. According to Apple Support:

1. Make sure Live Text is turned on in Settings → General → Language & Region.
2. Open a photo in the Photos app (or pause a video).
3. Touch and hold a word, then drag the grab points to select the text.
4. Tap Copy, or Select All to copy everything.

Live Text also works with the Camera app and images in Safari, and supported iPads running iPadOS 15.1 or later.

Method 3: On Android with Google Lens

Most Android phones include Google Lens in the camera, Google Photos or the Google app. Open the photo, tap the Lens icon, choose Text, then select and copy the words you need. Menu names vary slightly by phone and app version, so if you cannot find it, the online tool above works in any mobile browser.

Method 4: On Windows and Mac

• Windows: recent versions of the Snipping Tool include a text-actions feature for copying text from a screenshot. If your version does not have it, take a screenshot and paste it into the online tool with Ctrl+V.
• Mac: Live Text works in Preview and Photos on macOS Monterey and later — hover over text in an image and select it like normal text.
• PDFs: if your PDF already contains selectable text, use PDF to Text instead — it is faster and exact. Scanned PDFs need OCR: export the page as an image first (for example with our PDF to JPG tool).

Tips for more accurate results

• Shoot straight on. Hold the phone parallel to the page so lines are not slanted.
• Use good, even light. Avoid shadows and glare from glossy paper.
• Crop to the text. Remove backgrounds, photos and logos with Crop Image before extracting.
• Choose the right language. Selecting English for Urdu or Arabic text produces nonsense.
• Use high contrast. Dark text on a light background is read most accurately.
• Proofread numbers. OCR can mix up 0/O, 1/l/I and 5/S — check phone numbers, amounts and codes carefully.

Urdu and Arabic: OCR engines generally read printed Naskh-style text more accurately than the Nastaliq style used in many Urdu books and newspapers, so expect to correct more words with Nastaliq.

Frequently asked questions