Image to Text
Extract text from any image instantly with AI-powered OCR
Upload any image — JPG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, or PDF — and our AI-powered OCR engine extracts every line of text with 98%+ accuracy. Supports 50+ languages, handwriting, tables, and complex document layouts.
Drop your file here
or click to browse
Your privacy is protected. Files are processed in your session only.
Accepted Formats
Output Format
Plain Text (.txt)
Tips for best results
- Use clear, well-lit images
- Higher resolution = better accuracy
- Up to 5 MB free · 15 MB with account
Why use Image to Text?
Fast, accurate processing powered by Tesseract OCR — works on images and documents.
AI-Powered OCR
GPT-4o vision model extracts text with 98%+ accuracy across 50+ languages including Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic.
All Image Formats
Supports JPG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, BMP, and multi-page PDF documents in one upload.
Private & Secure
Files are processed in your browser session and never stored on our servers permanently.
How it works
Three simple steps — no software to install, no account required.
Upload your image
Drag and drop or click to select any image — JPG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, or PDF.
AI extracts the text
Our OCR engine reads every character, correcting skewed text, low-light photos, and complex layouts automatically.
Copy or download
Get clean plain text instantly — copy to clipboard or download as a .txt file.
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Use Cases
Who uses Image to Text conversion?
From students to enterprise teams — here are the most common workflows our OCR tool powers every day.
Document Digitization
Convert scanned PDFs, printed contracts, and paper documents into searchable, editable digital text archives.
Receipt & Invoice Processing
Extract amounts, dates, and line items from receipts and invoices for accounting, expenses, or reimbursement workflows.
Screenshot Text Extraction
Pull text out of screenshots, error messages, or chat logs that you can't select and copy normally.
Book & Article Scanning
Photograph pages from textbooks, journals, or magazines and convert them to editable text for notes or citations.
Academic Research
Digitize handwritten lab notes, lecture slides, or whiteboard photos into searchable text for papers and reports.
Multilingual Content
Extract text from images in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or any of 50+ supported languages for translation or editing.
FAQ
Image to Text — Common Questions
How do I convert an image to text online for free?
With TextLens it takes three steps: upload your image (drag & drop or click to browse), wait a few seconds while our AI OCR reads every character, then copy the extracted text to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file. No account or payment is needed.
What image formats does the tool support?
TextLens accepts JPG, JPEG, PNG, WEBP, TIFF, BMP, and multi-page PDF files. For best results, use images with at least 150 DPI resolution and good contrast between text and background.
How accurate is the OCR text extraction?
TextLens uses OpenAI's GPT-4o vision model, which achieves 98%+ accuracy on printed text in good lighting conditions. Accuracy is slightly lower for very low-resolution images, highly stylised fonts, or dense handwriting, but the AI automatically corrects common OCR artefacts like broken hyphens and misread characters.
Can it read handwritten text?
Yes. The GPT-4o vision model handles handwriting well, particularly neat or semi-cursive styles. Accuracy on handwriting varies by writing style — clear block letters achieve 90%+ accuracy while highly stylised cursive may be lower. For best results, photograph handwriting in bright, even lighting.
Which languages does the OCR support?
TextLens supports 50+ languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Russian, Hindi, and many more. The AI auto-detects the language, so no manual selection is needed.
Can it extract text from tables and structured documents?
Yes. Using the 'Formatted' OCR mode, TextLens preserves table structure (outputting Markdown tables), bullet lists, and headings. Switch to 'Simple' mode if you just need plain text without any formatting.
Is my image data private and secure?
Your files are uploaded to a temporary session on our servers for processing and are automatically deleted after your session ends. We never store images permanently, never use your data for AI training, and never share it with third parties. Processing is GDPR-compliant.
What is an Image to Text Converter?
An image to text converter — also called an OCR tool (Optical Character Recognition) — analyses the pixels in a photograph or scanned document and identifies the characters, words, and sentences written in it, then returns them as editable, copy-pasteable text.
Traditional OCR engines used pattern-matching algorithms that struggled with unusual fonts, low lighting, or skewed images. TextLens is powered by OpenAI GPT-4o vision, a multimodal AI that understands context — so it can read a sentence even when individual characters are slightly unclear, just as a human reader would.
OCR Simple Mode vs. Formatted Mode
TextLens offers two extraction modes to match different use cases:
Simple OCR
- ✓Plain text with no formatting
- ✓Best for body copy, emails, and articles
- ✓Fastest processing time
- ✓Easy to paste anywhere
Formatted OCR
- ✓Preserves tables as Markdown
- ✓Detects headings and bullet lists
- ✓Best for invoices, reports, slides
- ✓Output ready for Notion or CMS
Tips for getting the best OCR results
- 1Use high resolution: Images of at least 150 DPI give significantly better accuracy. If photographing a document, move close enough that the text fills most of the frame.
- 2Good lighting matters: Even, diffuse lighting prevents shadows that can obscure characters. Avoid harsh flash directly on glossy paper.
- 3Keep the image flat: Curved pages (like open books) distort characters at the edges. Press the page flat or photograph it from directly above.
- 4High contrast text is easier: Black text on white paper is the gold standard. Coloured text on coloured backgrounds is harder — increase contrast in your phone's camera settings if possible.
- 5Use Formatted mode for structured content: If your image contains a table, invoice, or list, switch to Formatted OCR mode so the structure is preserved in the output.
Image to Text vs. Copy-Paste from PDF
If you have a digital PDF with selectable text, you can copy-paste directly without OCR. But in two common scenarios, OCR is the only option:
- →Scanned PDFs — the PDF contains images of pages rather than searchable text layers.
- →Photo documents — any image you took with a phone camera (receipt, whiteboard, book page).
- →Password-protected PDFs — copy-paste is disabled; OCR reads the visual layer directly.
- →Garbled PDF text — some PDFs have corrupted character encoding; OCR bypasses this entirely.
Free plan limits and Pro upgrade
The free plan lets you extract text from images without any account. The Pro plan unlocks higher monthly scan limits, batch upload of up to 50 files at once, export to Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), and structured JSON, plus the Zapier integration to push results to Google Sheets, Notion, or Airtable automatically.