Took a picture of a page, a sign, a whiteboard, or a document and now you need the words as text? This free photo-to-text converter uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read the writing in your photo and hand it back as plain, editable text you can copy, search, or paste anywhere. It works right in your browser — no app to install and no account to create — so it's just as handy on your phone as on a laptop.
The tool runs on the open-source Tesseract OCR engine and supports roughly 12 languages. Photos of printed or typed text give the best results. Because real-world photos can include glare, shadow, blur, and tilt, a little care when shooting goes a long way toward a clean conversion.
How to convert a photo to text
- Click the upload area and choose your photo (JPG, PNG, HEIC, and more are accepted).
- Optionally select the language that matches the text in the picture.
- Press Convert and wait a moment while the OCR engine reads it.
- Review the extracted text in the result box.
- Copy the text or download it as a
.txtfile.
Tips for a clean photo
Good input makes the biggest difference. Fill the frame with the text and keep the page flat and parallel to the camera so lines don't skew. Use even, bright lighting and avoid casting a shadow with your hand or phone. Hold steady to prevent blur, and crop out background clutter so the engine focuses on the words. The sharper and straighter the shot, the more accurate the result.
Why use this tool
It is completely free with no sign-up, no watermark, and no hidden limits. Privacy is built in: your uploaded photo is processed and then automatically deleted afterward, so nothing lingers on a server. Most phones save photos as JPG or HEIC, so you can also start from the dedicated JPG to Text or HEIC to Text tools — they funnel into the same engine. If your photo shows handwriting, try the Handwriting to Text tool, and read our guide on how to get text out of a photo on any device.