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Image to Text (OCR)

Convert an image to text: pull the words out of screenshots, scans and photos with OCR that runs on your device — crop, rotate, pick a language, then edit, copy or download the result.

Images

Download notice: the first run loads the OCR engine (about 4 MB) and English language data (about 3 MB) from this site. Recognition runs in a background worker on your device.

Works best on clear printed text. Handwriting, unusual fonts, low-resolution photos, tables and multi-column layouts often come out wrong or out of order — check the result.

Add an image to read its text.

Getting the best result

  • Use the highest-resolution image you have; text should be at least ~20 pixels tall.
  • Rotate so the text reads left to right, upright.
  • Crop away photos, logos and other columns.
  • Pick the language the text is written in.

About the engine

Recognition uses tesseract.js (Apache-2.0), a WebAssembly build of the Tesseract OCR engine, with its LSTM “best (integer)” language models. If no text is found, the tool says so rather than guessing.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get text from an image?+

Add a screenshot, scan or photo, pick the language and press “Read text”. The recognized text appears in an editable box you can copy or save as a .txt file.

Is my image uploaded to a server?+

No. Text recognition runs on your device with the open-source Tesseract engine (tesseract.js) in a background worker. The engine and English language data are loaded from this site; other languages are downloaded from cdn.jsdelivr.net only if you agree — your images are never sent anywhere.

Why is some text wrong?+

OCR works best on sharp, straight, printed text with good contrast. Blurry photos, handwriting, decorative fonts, tables and multi-column pages often produce mistakes or text out of order. Crop to the text, rotate it upright and choose the right language to improve results — and always check the output.

Can it read handwriting?+

Not reliably. The engine is trained on printed text; neat handwriting sometimes works, but expect errors.

What does the confidence number mean?+

It's the engine's own average confidence in the words it found. Below about 60% the result is likely to contain mistakes. It's a guide, not a guarantee.

Which languages can it read?+

English is built in. You can also choose French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese (simplified) and Japanese — 12 languages in all. Pick the language the text is written in; each extra language's data file (0.7 to 3 MB) is downloaded from cdn.jsdelivr.net only after you tick the consent box.

Which image formats can I use?+

JPG, PNG, WebP, BMP and GIF (the first frame), up to 30 MB each. Screenshots usually give the best results because the text is perfectly sharp.

Can I crop or rotate the image before reading it?+

Yes. Rotate left or right until the text is upright, and drag on the preview to select just the area you want read. Cropping out logos, photos and other columns often makes the result cleaner and keeps the text in the right order.

Can I extract text from a PDF?+

Not here — this tool reads images. For a scanned PDF, use PDF OCR (tools.northlane.live/pdf-ocr/), which runs the same engine in your browser and can make the PDF searchable or copy its text out. A PDF that already has selectable text doesn't need OCR at all.

Does it keep the formatting?+

No. The result is plain text with line breaks — fonts, bold, colors, tables and page layout aren't kept. Paste it into a document and reformat it there.

Can I process several images?+

Yes. Each image keeps its own result, which you can copy or download separately, or save all results in one .txt file.

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