How to Extract Text from an Image or Screenshot

A screenshot has a paragraph you want to quote. A photograph of a sign in another country needs translating. The text is right there visually but you can't select it — it's pixels, not characters. OCR turns the pixels back into text.

When you actually need Image to Text

Quoting from screenshots, copy-pasting from photos of menus or signs, archiving user-interface text from old products, transcribing handwritten notes (poorly — Tesseract isn't great at handwriting).

How to image to text, step by step

Open the tool

Go to convertpdfgo.com/image-to-text. No account, no email, no installation.

Drop the file in

Drag the file onto the upload area or click to pick. Files up to 30 MB go through without a queue. Encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3), encrypted at rest, deleted within one hour.

Configure

Pick the OCR language. Returns plain text.

Download

Open in any reader, paste anywhere, feed to scripts.

Common problems and how to avoid them

Wrong language

Pass the right code: eng English, rus Russian, uzb Uzbek Latin, uzb_cyrl Cyrillic Uzbek, kir Kyrgyz.

Bad quality output on screenshot

Increase the screenshot resolution — Tesseract needs ~300 DPI equivalent. macOS Cmd+Shift+4 produces sharp PNGs.

Multi-column layout came out wrong

Tesseract reads top-to-bottom by default. For magazines/newspapers, crop columns separately then OCR each.

A short word on privacy

Three things to know. One: files go over TLS 1.3. Two: files are encrypted at rest while we process them, then deleted automatically within one hour. Three: we don't look at your files or train on them.

How we compare to other free tools

Feature	convertpdfgo	Smallpdf	iLovePDF
Sign-up	None	After 2/day	Optional
Watermark	None	None	None
Auto-delete	1 hour	Vague	2 hours

Frequently asked questions

Will it work on a screenshot?

Yes — screenshots are just PNGs. Works especially well on UI text because the pixels are sharp and high-contrast.

Handwriting?

Tesseract is poor at handwriting. Stick to printed text. For handwriting, a dedicated handwriting OCR tool is needed.

Are my files private?

Files are encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest, then auto-deleted within one hour.

Will it work on protected PDFs?

Not directly — unlock the PDF first with our Unlock PDF tool if you know the password.

Is there a usage limit?

No. Free, no daily cap, no sign-up wall, no watermark.

How long does it take?

About 5-30 seconds depending on file size and OCR complexity. Multi-page scans take longer.

What's the file size limit?

30 MB as a guest, 50 MB when signed in.

What to do next

Now you can OCR Extract Text, OCR PDF, or Detect Language. All free.

Or browse our full list of 49 free PDF tools.