Image to Text (OCR) — Extract Text from Images Online Free

Extract Text from Any Image

See text in an image that you need to copy? MyPDF's Image to Text tool uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to read text from images and make it editable, searchable, and copy-pasteable.

How It Works

1. Upload your image to the Image to Text tool
2. Select language(s) — helps the OCR engine recognize characters accurately
3. Extract — the tool scans the image and outputs editable text
4. Copy or download the extracted text

Supported Input Formats

JPG, PNG, WebP, BMP, TIFF, GIF, HEIC — any common image format.

Common Use Cases

Use Case	Example
Screenshots	Copy text from a screenshot instead of retyping
Scanned documents	Convert paper documents to digital text
Photos of whiteboards	Capture meeting notes from whiteboard photos
Business cards	Extract contact information from card photos
Receipts	Pull data from receipt photos for expense tracking
Book pages	Digitize text from printed books
Street signs	Translate text from photos taken abroad

OCR Accuracy Tips

1. Use clear, well-lit images: Better lighting = better recognition
2. Straighten the image: Rotated or skewed text reduces accuracy
3. Choose the right language: Always select the language of the text
4. Higher resolution helps: At least 300 DPI for best results
5. Avoid heavy compression: Blurry JPGs produce poor OCR results

Image to Text vs OCR PDF

Tool	Input	Output	Best For
Image to Text	JPG, PNG, etc.	Plain text	Screenshots, photos
OCR PDF	Scanned PDF	Searchable PDF	Multi-page documents

Use Image to Text for single images. Use OCR PDF when you have a multi-page scanned PDF and want to make it searchable while keeping the PDF format.

Supported Languages

The OCR engine supports 100+ languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, and many more.

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is the OCR?

For clear, printed text with good lighting, accuracy is typically 95-99%. Handwritten text, stylized fonts, or low-quality images may have lower accuracy.

Can it read handwritten text?

Basic handwritten text in clear handwriting can be recognized, but accuracy varies significantly. Printed text always produces the best results.

Does it preserve formatting?

The tool extracts raw text. Basic paragraph structure is preserved, but complex formatting (columns, tables) may need manual cleanup.

Is there a file size limit?

Images up to 50 MB are supported. For best results, keep images under 10 MB.

Related Tools

• OCR PDF — Make scanned PDFs searchable
• Image to PDF — Convert images to PDF
• PDF to Text — Extract text from digital PDFs
• Compress Image — Reduce image size