Whether it's photo to text, picture to text, screenshot to text or a scanned PDF, drop the file and get the words back as plain, copyable text — read by real OCR, not guessed by an AI.
It's a fast way to extract text from image files, screenshots or scans alike.
By ShinobiTools Team · Last updated: August 2026
Your file is deleted the moment it's done. The big PDF sites keep your bank statements and IDs on their servers. Here nothing is kept: your file is read in a temporary folder that is wiped as soon as the text comes back, and we keep no copy of the text.
Snap a picture, drop it in, and the text comes back as a box you can select and copy; there is no program to install and nothing running on your machine but the browser tab you're already in.
This page answers one question: what does the text in this image or PDF actually say? Drop the file and the words come back as plain text in a box you can select, copy or download as a .txt file — nothing to open, no formatting to fight with.
Want a PDF you can search and select text in, keeping the original look of the page? That is a different job — see make a searchable OCR PDF, which adds a hidden text layer under your scan instead of pulling the words out.
Drop a photo or a scan and the words come out the moment OCR is done, so you can extract text from picture files with printed text on them, pull the words from image files you can't select, read image text out of a screenshot, and copy it straight from the box above. OCR has to detect text before it can read it, which is why a blurry or heavily tilted photo loses words a sharp one keeps. Like any careful transcriber it only copies down exactly what's printed, never summarizing or rewriting, and it will convert to text in the same few seconds for any supported photo, screenshot or scan.
Text recognition runs on OCR, the same engine behind the searchable-PDF tool on this site — not a generative AI guessing at words, so it reads what is actually on the page. English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and French are covered.
Accuracy depends on the source: a straight, well-lit, in-focus photo reads close to perfectly, while a blurry, tilted or low-resolution image loses words. If a photo scans poorly here, running it through straighten a scanned photo or clean a scanned document first often fixes it.
Despite the common phrasing, an image to text ai search is answered honestly above: this reads text with OCR, not a generative model guessing at what the words probably say — that distinction is exactly why it gets a faded receipt or a handwritten-adjacent font right where an AI captioning tool would paraphrase. If what's actually wanted is an image to text description — a sentence describing what's in the photo, not the words written on it — that's a different job entirely, image captioning rather than OCR, and this page doesn't do it. An image to text translator search is close but not quite this either: this extracts text in its original language; for turning that into another language, translate text from photo is the tool that reads and translates in one step. That same tool is the answer to image text to english conversions when the source isn't already in English.
As a picture to text converter it is built on real OCR, not a guess from an AI captioning model, and as an online image to text converter it needs nothing beyond this page. As an image text extractor, or plain text extractor, it pulls out only the words already on the page. A PNG to text upload works the same as a JPG to text one, and an image text JPG goes through the same step as a PNG or a screenshot. Convert picture to text, or turn image into text, in any of the six languages without picking one yourself. The image text reader runs real OCR, so it catches a faded receipt where a guessing tool would paraphrase; like any good text reader, it shows exactly what's there.
A transcript image works like any screenshot: drop it in and the words come back as plain text. To transcribe image to text you need no audio file at all, because this reads pixels, not sound. Turning images to text still means one file at a time, since there is no multi-file queue, though a single PDF covers up to 15 pages in one pass. You can scan image for text the moment you drop a photo, and going from image to words takes one upload, with no account and no watermark.
Picture into text comes back in the result box within seconds, from a phone screenshot as easily as from a scanned page; you can watch the image convert to text in the time OCR needs to read the page once. Screenshots and other images with text often carry low-contrast or tiny print, and OCR still reads it as long as the shot is reasonably sharp, so a quick scan text job on a phone photo is as accurate as one on a proper scanner image. Drop a PNG or a JPG; several pictures to text jobs in a row all run the same free OCR step, and the result is plain text to paste wherever you need it, for text messages, notes or documents.
Drop a PDF instead of an image and each page is rendered and read in turn, with a page heading between them so a multi-page document stays easy to follow. Up to 15 pages per file: a document of 16 to 25 pages is read up to page 15 and the page says so, and a PDF over 25 pages is refused.
Already have a PDF with real, selectable text and just want it as an editable document? PDF to Word rebuilds it as a .docx instead of dumping it as plain text.
Want the headings and lists kept as lightweight markup instead of a flat .txt dump? PDF to Markdown preserves that structure in a plain-text file.
Long PDF and would rather ask it specific questions than read through the whole extracted text? Chat with PDF answers questions about a document's content directly, using the same kind of text this page extracts.
Reading a scan to see what's on it before you forward it, and one line turns out to be a signature, ID number or address that should not go along? OCR only reads the text here — it does not remove anything from the file. Redact PDF draws a box over that part of the original and cuts it out for good.
Extracted text throwing an "invalid character" error when you paste it into a script or a CSV import? OCR output can carry a stray invisible character that doesn't show on screen. TextNinja's special characters remover finds and strips it, free.
There is no account, no watermark and no daily cap. Everything runs on our own servers; the ads on the page keep them online. Your original upload is deleted the moment processing finishes, the text comes back in the same request and nothing of it is kept on our side, and nothing is ever sold, shared or used to train AI.
This is image to text online: snap a picture, drop it in, and the text comes back as a box you can select and copy. There is nothing to install, no converter program, just the browser tab you are already in.
Is this image to text AI? Not in the generative sense: it reads text with free OCR online, not with a generative AI model guessing at what the words probably say. That is why it copies a faded receipt exactly, where an AI captioning tool might paraphrase. It also means it does not describe what is in a photo: a sentence like "a dog on a beach" is image captioning, a different job this page does not do. It is not an image to text translator on its own either: it keeps the text in its original language. To turn it into English or another language, translate text from photo reads and translates in one step.
Drop it onto the box above. The text is read with OCR and appears in a box you can copy from or download as .txt, with no account and no watermark. You get a text copy of what's printed, so how to copy from image to text without retyping is just that: copy it from the box.
English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and French. It reads whichever of those the page is written in without you having to pick one, and French reads as accurately as English.
Yes. Drop a PDF instead of an image and every page, up to 15, is rendered and read in turn, with a heading marking where each page starts. That is how to get a PDF in text form when it has no selectable text: you can convert PDF image to text, or PDF images to text from a scanned document, without going through OCR PDF first. PDF to text this way gives plain text; to convert PDF scans into a searchable PDF instead, OCR PDF builds one from photos of the pages.
OCR reads what it can see, so a blurry, tilted or very low-resolution photo loses words. A straight, sharp, well-lit shot reads far more accurately; try our straighten or clean tools first if a scan reads poorly. Regular printed text reads well, but handwriting mostly does not, and a heavily stylised or decorative font is the weak spot for any OCR engine.
This page gives you the words themselves, as copyable plain text. The OCR PDF tool is a different OCR tool: it builds a searchable PDF that still looks like your original scan, with the text hidden underneath.
Up to 250 MB per file (500 MB with a pass), and up to 15 pages when the file is a PDF; a PDF of 16 to 25 pages is read up to page 15, and a longer one is refused.
It is read in a temporary folder on our server that is wiped as soon as the text comes back. No copy of the file or the text is kept, and there is no account and nothing to delete later.
Drop it onto the box above; real OCR reads the text from an image and shows it in a box you can copy from or download. Screenshots work the same as photos: upload the .png or .jpg and the visible text is read out, which is handy for text you can't select. It is a quick text extract with nothing to set up.
Yes. A phone photo, a JPEG straight off the camera or any JPG image works, and a sharp, well-lit shot gives the best result. To convert JPG photos taken at an angle: a slight tilt usually reads fine, but if it is badly skewed, Straighten a scanned photo first. To convert image into text on a phone, the steps are the same.
It is free, with no account, no login and no daily cap. The image to text converter free tier is the whole tool, a free converter you can come back to for every file, and the OCR runs on our own server, so nothing needs installing on a computer or a phone.
No app is needed: it works in Safari on an iPhone and in any other browser. How to convert image to text without installing anything is simply this page.
Not in one upload. Run each file separately and each file's text appears in its own box. As an images to text converter it handles them one after another, and as an image text to text converter it reads one picture at a time; reading the images text from a stack of screenshots just takes a few uploads. A single PDF covers up to 15 pages in one pass.
Not directly: paste from the result box into a spreadsheet, or for a PDF with real table data use PDF to Excel. If you want an editable .docx rather than plain text, PDF to Word is the document converter for a PDF that already has text. Like every PDF tool here, both are free.
No. This only reads the words out. It is not an image text editor that can change the words on the photo, and not an image text remover or text remover that can erase them. Edit image text in the result box or wherever you paste it; to edit image content itself you need a photo editor.
Not on this page, which isn't an image text enhancer. If the photo is too blurry to read, Enhance a scanned document can sharpen it first; then bring the result back here. That enhancer is free too.
Google Keep image to text grabs text from a photo too, but saves it into a Keep note tied to your Google account, and Drive's feature stays inside Drive. This is not a Google Drive image to text converter and doesn't touch your Drive: download the image first if it's stored there, then upload it here.
Yes. Copy the text it reads out and paste it into a text message, a caption or alt text; that is the easiest way to turn an image for text message use into words. A screenshot of an image text message becomes searchable and editable the same way.
Plain, copyable text. Nothing about the picture changes in an image to text image job; only the words on it are read, and you can watch the image convert into text in a few seconds. It is not an image into text generator that invents a description: it will read text from any text image exactly as printed. On a phone, an image scan to text works after you tap to load image text from your gallery, so you can scan to text from a page you just photographed.
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