Retyping text from a photo, screenshot or scanned page is slow and error-prone. Text recognition (OCR) can do it in seconds, and it's built into most phones and computers. Here's how on each device.
iPhone and iPad
Open the photo in Photos, or point the Camera at the text, and tap the text recognition button (Live Text) in the corner, or simply press and hold on a word. Then select the text and tap Copy.
Android
In Google Photos or the camera app, tap Lens, then Text. Select the text and tap Copy.
Windows 11
Take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool (Windows + Shift + S) and use Text actions to copy all the text. Microsoft PowerToys also has a Text Extractor (Windows + Shift + T) that copies text from anywhere on the screen.
Mac
Open the image in Preview or Photos and select the text with the cursor as if it were a document, then copy it.
In your browser, in many languages
The Image to Text tool reads English, Sinhala, Tamil, Hindi, Chinese and 13 more languages. It works on any device, can read many images at once, and you can paste a screenshot straight in. The images aren't uploaded.
For a whole scanned document, use Scanned PDF to Text, which can also make the PDF searchable.
Tips for accurate results
- Get close and straight on. Fill the photo with the text and avoid angles.
- Use good light without shadows or glare.
- Screenshots beat photos of a screen.
- Choose the right language, and add English for mixed text.
- Crop out pictures and unrelated text first with the image cropper.
- Always check numbers, names and amounts: a misread 8 or 3 is easy to miss.