How to Convert Image to Text Free — OCR Online

When you have a photo of a document, a screenshot of an article, or a scanned page, you cannot copy or edit the text — it is locked inside the image. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology solves this by reading the text in an image and converting it into editable, copyable text. This guide shows you how to do it for free.

What Is OCR and How Does It Work?

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. It is the technology that reads text inside images by analyzing the shape of letters and words. Modern OCR uses machine learning to recognize text across different fonts, sizes, and languages, even in photos taken at an angle or with imperfect lighting.

OCR converts:

Scanned documents → editable text
Screenshots → copyable text
Photos of signs or books → searchable text
Business cards → contact information
Receipts and invoices → data you can paste into a spreadsheet

How to Convert Image to Text Free With FileFlip

FileFlip's Image to Text tool uses OCR to extract text from any image. Free, no registration, works on any device.

Step 1: Open Image to Text

Go to fileflip.org/tools/image-to-text.

Step 2: Upload your image

Upload a JPG, PNG, WebP, or other image file. You can also take a photo directly from your phone camera if using mobile.

Step 3: Extract text

FileFlip analyzes the image and extracts all readable text. The text appears in a box below the image.

Step 4: Copy or download

Click Copy to copy the extracted text to your clipboard, or Download to save it as a .txt file.

Tips for Better OCR Results

OCR accuracy depends heavily on the image quality. Follow these tips to get the best results:

Use high-resolution images Images below 150 DPI often produce poor OCR results. Scan documents at 300 DPI or higher. If photographing with a phone, make sure the image is sharp and in focus.

Ensure good contrast Dark text on a light background works best. Avoid images where the text color is similar to the background.

Keep the image flat and straight Text on a curved page (like an open book) or taken at an angle is harder to read. Flatten the page and photograph it from directly above.

Avoid shadows and glare Shadows and glare from phone flashes reduce accuracy significantly. Use natural light or a flat lamp for document photos.

Use PNG instead of JPG for screenshots Screenshots saved as PNG are sharper than JPG because PNG is lossless. Upload PNG screenshots for the most accurate text extraction.

Common Uses for Image to Text Conversion

Digitizing paper documents Scan old paper documents and run OCR to make the text searchable and editable. Ideal for archiving contracts, letters, invoices and records.

Copying text from screenshots When you cannot copy text from a PDF, website, or video subtitle, take a screenshot and run it through OCR.

Reading text from photos Extract the text from a photo of a sign, whiteboard, book or handwritten note. Useful for quickly digitizing information without retyping.

Extracting data from receipts Run receipts and invoices through OCR to extract amounts, dates and descriptions for expense tracking.

Making scanned PDFs searchable A scanned PDF is just images — you cannot search or select text in it. Convert the scanned PDF to images using PDF to JPG, run OCR on each page, and you have searchable text.

Image to Text vs PDF to Text

FileFlip offers two related tools:

Image to Text (fileflip.org/tools/image-to-text) — extracts text from JPG, PNG and other image files using OCR
PDF to Text (fileflip.org/tools/pdf-to-text) — extracts text from a PDF that already contains selectable text (not a scanned PDF)

For scanned PDFs where text is not selectable, use Image to Text: first convert the PDF to images using PDF to JPG, then extract text from each image.

Supported Image Formats for OCR

FileFlip's Image to Text tool accepts:

JPG / JPEG
PNG
WebP
GIF
BMP
TIFF

For HEIC files (iPhone photos), first convert to JPG using HEIC to JPG, then run OCR.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is OCR? OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. It is a technology that reads text characters in images and converts them into machine-readable, editable text. Modern OCR uses deep learning to handle different fonts, languages, orientations and image qualities with high accuracy.

How accurate is image to text conversion? Accuracy depends on image quality. For clean, high-resolution scans or screenshots, accuracy is typically above 98%. For low-resolution, blurry or handwritten images, accuracy can be lower. Handwritten text is significantly harder to read than printed text.

Can OCR read handwritten text? Modern OCR can read clear, neatly handwritten text with reasonable accuracy. Cursive handwriting is much harder to read and may produce errors. For best results with handwriting, use high contrast (black ink on white paper) and write in block letters.

What languages does the OCR support? FileFlip's OCR supports the major world languages including English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi, among others.

Is my document safe when I use FileFlip for OCR? Yes. FileFlip processes your image using JavaScript running in your browser. Your image file is never sent to an external server. All OCR processing happens locally on your device.

Can I extract text from a scanned PDF? A scanned PDF contains images, not text. Use PDF to JPG to convert each page to an image, then use Image to Text to extract the text from each page.

Can I extract text from a screenshot? Yes. Upload the screenshot as a PNG or JPG file. FileFlip will extract all visible text from the screenshot. This is useful for copying text from apps, videos, or locked PDFs.

Does image to text work on mobile? Yes. Go to fileflip.org/tools/image-to-text in your mobile browser. You can upload a photo directly from your camera roll or take a new photo. The OCR runs in the browser without any app installation.