Quick answer
Drop an image of text — a photo, screenshot, or scan — and get editable plain text out. Pick the source language for best accuracy. Runs entirely in your browser using the Tesseract OCR engine — no upload, no signup, no limit.
What works well
- Screenshots — interface text, error messages, code snippets
- Photos of documents — printed paper, books, receipts, business cards
- Signs & menus — works great for translating photos when traveling
- Scanned PDFs — convert each page to image first (use our PDF to Image tool)
Tips for best accuracy
Use clear, well-lit images. Higher resolution helps (≥600px wide). Avoid blurry photos, extreme angles, or stylized fonts. Always pick the correct source language — accuracy can drop 20-30% if the wrong language is selected.
Supported languages
English, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Dutch, Polish. Each language downloads a ~5–15 MB data file on first use, then is cached forever.
Why this is 100% private
The Tesseract OCR engine runs entirely in your browser using WebAssembly. Your images are never uploaded to any server — perfect for confidential documents, invoices with personal info, or sensitive screenshots.
FAQ
Is there a limit?
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No. Unlimited images, no signup, no daily quota. Since the OCR runs on your device (not our server), there's no cost to us per image — so no reason to charge.
How accurate is it?
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For clean printed text: 95-99%. For handwriting: very poor (Tesseract isn't built for handwriting). For low-resolution or blurry images: 70-85%. The biggest accuracy factor is image quality.
Can I extract text from PDFs?
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Indirectly — first convert PDF pages to images using our PDF to Image tool, then process each image here. We're considering adding direct PDF support in the future.
Does it preserve formatting?
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OCR extracts plain text only. Layout, fonts, and styling are lost. For most use cases (copying text to translate, edit, or search) that's exactly what you want.