Why does the first scan take longer than the second?

The first scan in a given language downloads the OCR model (~10 MB compressed) into your browser cache. Subsequent scans in the same language reuse the cached model and skip the download — you go from ~5 seconds first time to 1–3 seconds repeat.

Will my image be uploaded to a server?

No. Tesseract.js runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Open DevTools → Network during a scan and you'll see only the model download from a CDN — never your image. After the first scan, even the model is cached locally.

Why is accuracy lower for handwriting?

Tesseract is trained primarily on printed/typed text. Handwriting needs a different kind of training data and a different segmentation approach (cursive flow rather than discrete glyphs). Use the dedicated handwriting-to-text tool, which uses a model tuned for it.

What's the maximum image size?

Limited by browser memory. In practice ~10 megapixels works fine; above that, processing slows and may run out of memory on phones. If you have a giant scan, downsize to ~3000 px wide first — OCR accuracy doesn't increase past that resolution.

Why does the output have weird line breaks?

OCR sees visual lines, not logical paragraphs — so wrap-around words appear on separate lines. The Copy as Markdown option does best-effort paragraph reflow. Or just paste into a text editor and join the broken lines manually.

Can it handle multiple languages in one image?

Pick the dominant language for best results. Mixed-language images (e.g. an English caption on a French photo) often do okay if the dominant script is the same (Latin), but accuracy drops on mixed scripts (Latin + Chinese) — those need a multi-language Tesseract config that's not exposed in this tool.

File & Format Converters · Free tool

Image to Text (OCR)

Convert screenshots, scans, or photos to text using in-browser Tesseract OCR. No upload, instant results, and completely free online.

Updated June 2026

Language

No image yet

Drop a screenshot, photo of a sign, or scanned document above. Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, and most common image formats.

OCR runs entirely in your browser via Tesseract WebAssembly. First run downloads the language pack (~10MB); later runs are instant.

Found this useful?Email Buy Me a Coffee

What it does

Drop an image of text — a receipt, a screenshot of a chat, a scanned page, a photo of a sign — and the tool extracts the text using in-browser OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Supports 15+ languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese, and Korean. Pick the language before scanning — wrong language guess yields garbled output.

Common uses: digitizing receipts and invoices for expense tracking, extracting quotes from screenshots of articles or social media, copying text from images in PDFs that aren't OCR-searchable, capturing a recipe from a magazine photo, or reading a sign in another language (then paste the result into a translation tool).

The OCR engine runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly (Tesseract.js, the JavaScript port of the Tesseract OCR library). The first scan downloads a ~10 MB language model and takes a few seconds; subsequent scans in the same language reuse the cached model and run in 1–3 seconds for a typical screenshot. No image leaves your device — useful for receipts and documents you don't want to send to a cloud service.

Embed this tool on your siteShow snippet

Paste this snippet into any page. Loads on-demand (lazy), no tracking scripts, and sized to most dashboards. Replace the height to fit your layout.

<iframe src="https://freetoolarena.com/embed/image-to-text" width="100%" height="720" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" title="Image to Text (OCR)" style="border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:12px;max-width:720px;"></iframe>

Embed docs →

How to use it

Pick the language of the text in the image. Wrong language picks produce garbled output, so this matters.
Drop the image into the upload area or click to browse. Best results: clear focus, good contrast, ~300 DPI scanned-page resolution or sharper.
Wait for OCR. First scan in a language downloads a ~10 MB model (a few seconds); later scans are 1–3 seconds.
The extracted text appears in the output box. Edit it directly to fix any recognition errors before copying.
Click Copy to put the text on your clipboard. For multi-column layouts, use Copy as Markdown to preserve some structure.

When to use this tool

Digitizing receipts, invoices, or business cards for expense tracking or contact import.
Extracting text from screenshots of articles, social posts, or chat messages.
Capturing text from images embedded in non-searchable PDFs (image-only scans).
Quickly copying ingredients from a magazine photo or a recipe screenshot.

When not to use it

Heavily stylized text (curved logos, decorative typography) — Tesseract is tuned for standard typography. Use a vision-LLM tool for those.
Handwritten text — that's a different OCR mode; use the dedicated handwriting-to-text tool which is configured for it.
Tables and forms where layout matters — output is plain text. For structured extraction (forms, invoices with positional data), use a specialized service like AWS Textract.
Very low-resolution images (under 100 DPI equivalent) — accuracy drops sharply on blurry input.

Common use cases

Onboarding a colleague who needs the same calculation/conversion
Verifying a number or output before passing it on
Quick conversion during a typical workday
Pre-decision sanity-check on inputs and outputs

Frequently asked questions

Why does the first scan take longer than the second?: The first scan in a given language downloads the OCR model (~10 MB compressed) into your browser cache. Subsequent scans in the same language reuse the cached model and skip the download — you go from ~5 seconds first time to 1–3 seconds repeat.
Will my image be uploaded to a server?: No. Tesseract.js runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Open DevTools → Network during a scan and you'll see only the model download from a CDN — never your image. After the first scan, even the model is cached locally.
Why is accuracy lower for handwriting?: Tesseract is trained primarily on printed/typed text. Handwriting needs a different kind of training data and a different segmentation approach (cursive flow rather than discrete glyphs). Use the dedicated handwriting-to-text tool, which uses a model tuned for it.
What's the maximum image size?: Limited by browser memory. In practice ~10 megapixels works fine; above that, processing slows and may run out of memory on phones. If you have a giant scan, downsize to ~3000 px wide first — OCR accuracy doesn't increase past that resolution.
Why does the output have weird line breaks?: OCR sees visual lines, not logical paragraphs — so wrap-around words appear on separate lines. The Copy as Markdown option does best-effort paragraph reflow. Or just paste into a text editor and join the broken lines manually.
Can it handle multiple languages in one image?: Pick the dominant language for best results. Mixed-language images (e.g. an English caption on a French photo) often do okay if the dominant script is the same (Latin), but accuracy drops on mixed scripts (Latin + Chinese) — those need a multi-language Tesseract config that's not exposed in this tool.

Learn more

Explore more file & format converters tools

100% in-browserNo downloadsNo sign-upMalware-freeHow we keep this safe →