Extract Text From Image

Tool Overview

This tool extracts text from an image using optical character recognition. You give it a photo or screenshot and it returns the text it finds so you can copy or download it. You do not need to type the text by hand.

Many people have images that contain text. Screenshots, scanned documents, signs, or receipts. Reading and typing that text is slow and error prone. This tool solves that by reading the image and returning the text automatically.

The tool is for anyone who needs to get text out of an image. Students use it for notes or handouts. Office workers use it for scanned forms or receipts. Researchers use it for screenshots. You do not need technical skills. You upload or paste an image and the tool shows the extracted text.

Background & Concept Explanation

Optical character recognition means software looks at an image and finds letters and numbers. It turns the shapes in the image into editable text. The software is trained on many fonts and layouts so it can recognize characters in photos or scans.

This kind of extraction is used in many places. Libraries digitize books. Offices scan forms to get data. People capture text from signs or receipts. Without OCR you would have to type everything by hand. A related operation involves picking colors from images as part of a similar workflow.

People struggle when they have only an image. They retype long passages and make mistakes. They cannot search or edit the content. They need the text in a form they can copy or save. This tool runs OCR in your browser so you can paste or upload an image and get the text back.

The tool uses an OCR engine that works on printed text. It returns the full text and also line by line with a confidence score. You can see how sure the engine is about each part. You can switch between viewing the image, the text, or both side by side.

Key Features

• Three ways to add an image. You can drag and drop a file onto the upload area. You can click to browse and select a file. You can paste from the clipboard with Ctrl+V when you have an image copied. This fits different workflows and devices.
• Accepted image types are JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF. The file must be under 20MB. Very large images are scaled down so the tool can process them without freezing. If the file is too big or not an image, you see a clear error message.
• Processing shows a progress bar. The tool loads the OCR engine, then runs recognition on your image. You see a percentage until extraction is done. This helps you know the tool is working and not stuck.
• Result includes full text and a list of lines. Each line has the text, a confidence score from 0 to 100, and a bounding box on the image. You see how many lines were found and the overall confidence. This helps you judge quality and find low-confidence parts.
• Three view modes let you choose what to see. Split shows the image and the text side by side. Text shows only the extracted text. Image shows only the image with the bounding boxes. You switch with buttons in the toolbar.
• Three layout modes change how the text is formatted. Lines keeps line breaks as detected. Plain puts everything in one line with single spaces. Blocks separates paragraphs with blank lines. You choose in the settings panel. This affects what you copy and download.
• Visual mapping draws boxes on the image for each line. When you hover over a line of text, the matching box on the image highlights. When you hover over a box on the image, the matching text line highlights. This helps you see which text came from which part of the image.
• Confidence is shown per line and overall. High confidence is shown in green, medium in amber, low in rose. A legend at the bottom explains the ranges. This helps you spot lines that may need a second look.
• Copy puts the formatted text on your clipboard. The format follows the current layout mode. You can paste into a document or another app. Download saves the same text as a plain text file named extracted_text.txt.
• Smart Optimize is optional. It sends the extracted text to a backend service that returns cleaned or improved text. You need at least 10 characters to use it. Very long text may be truncated before sending. If the service fails, you still have the original OCR result. The tool does not depend on this for extraction.
• New extraction clears the image and result so you can upload or paste another image. Fullscreen lets you expand the result view. Settings can be collapsed or expanded to change layout mode and see line count and confidence on small screens.

Common Use Cases

Students extract text from photos of handouts or whiteboards. They upload the image and copy the text into notes or a document. Layout mode Lines keeps the structure so it is easier to read.

Office workers get text from scanned receipts or forms. They paste a screenshot or upload a file and download the result as a text file. They can then search or edit the content in a spreadsheet or database. For adjacent tasks, compressing images addresses a complementary step.

Researchers capture text from articles or books shown on screen. They use Split view to compare the image and the extracted text and fix any wrong characters. Confidence scores help them find lines to check.

Anyone with a screenshot of an error message or a sign can paste the image and get the text. Copy or download makes it easy to share or search. No typing is required.

People digitizing printed material use the tool to get a first draft of text. They can clean it up afterward. Plain or Blocks layout can make the output easier to edit in a word processor.

How to Use This Tool

1. Open the extract text from image tool in your browser.
2. Add an image. Drag and drop a file onto the upload area, or click to browse and select a file, or copy an image to the clipboard and press Ctrl+V. The file must be JPEG, PNG, WebP, or GIF and under 20MB.
3. Wait for processing. A progress bar shows while the OCR engine loads and runs. Do not close the page until extraction is done. When it finishes, the result view appears.
4. Choose a view mode. Use Split to see the image and text together, Text to see only the extracted text, or Image to see only the image with bounding boxes. Use the toolbar buttons.
5. Optionally change the layout. Open the settings panel and choose Lines, Plain, or Blocks. This changes how the text is formatted when you copy or download.
6. Review the text and confidence. Hover over a line of text to see its box on the image. Hover over a box to see the matching line. Use the confidence colors to spot uncertain lines.
7. Copy the text with the Copy button. The formatted text is put on your clipboard. Or use Download to save it as a file named extracted_text.txt.
8. Optionally use Smart Optimize. If you have at least 10 characters of extracted text, click Smart Optimize to get a cleaned version. Wait for the result. If it fails, the original OCR text is still there.
9. To process another image, click the new extraction button. The current image and result are cleared and you can upload or paste again.

Calculations & Logic

The tool does not perform numeric calculations on your data. It runs an OCR engine on the image. The engine returns raw text and a list of lines with text, confidence, and bounding box coordinates. The tool then formats this for display and export. When working with related formats, converting binary to text can be a useful part of the process.

Confidence is a number from 0 to 100 per line and overall. The engine provides a confidence value for each line. The overall confidence is the average of line confidences when lines exist; otherwise it uses the engine value. Values are clamped between 0 and 100. The tool uses these to color lines and show the percentage in the toolbar.

Layout modes change how the full text is built. Lines mode joins line text with newlines. Plain mode takes the full text and collapses all whitespace to single spaces. Blocks mode joins line text with double newlines between lines. This only affects display, copy, and download; the raw OCR result is unchanged.

Large images are scaled before processing. If the image width or height exceeds the limit, it is scaled down to fit while keeping aspect ratio. This avoids timeouts and keeps the tool responsive. The exact limits are set in the code for upload display and for the OCR step.

Reference Tables or Scales

Confidence ranges and their meaning in the interface: In some workflows, generating placeholder images is a relevant follow-up operation.

Limits you must respect:

Layout modes:

Tips, Limitations & Best Practices

Use clear, well-lit images. Blurry or dark images give worse results. Straight, flat photos of documents work better than angled or curved shots. Crop to the area that contains the text so the engine has less to process.

The OCR engine in this tool is set up for English text. Text in other languages may not be recognized correctly. For best results use images with clear printed English. For related processing needs, viewing image metadata handles a complementary task.

Check low-confidence lines. Use the color coding and hover sync to find lines that might be wrong. Correct them manually if you need accurate text.

Respect the 20MB file limit. Compress or resize very large images before uploading. Very large dimensions are scaled down automatically; very large files are rejected with an error.

Smart Optimize is optional and can fail. If you see an error or no change, use the original extracted text. Do not rely on Smart Optimize for the core extraction.

Download or copy the text if you need it elsewhere. The result exists only in the browser until you save or paste it. Use the new extraction button when you are done so you can process another image.

Handwriting and complex layouts may not be recognized well. The engine is tuned for printed text. Tables, equations, or unusual fonts may produce errors or missing text. For such content, expect to correct the output by hand.

Output is plain text only. The tool does not produce PDF or Word files. You get raw text that you can paste into any editor or save as a .txt file.