# Image to Text: Copy Text From a Photo A photo of a notice, a screenshot of a chat or a picture of a page: get the words out as text you can copy, edit or translate, without typing them again. _Source: https://sharelargefilesfree.com/tools/image-to-text ยท Updated 2026-09-29_ **Quick answer:** This image-to-text tool reads the words in JPG, PNG and WebP images and scanned PDFs on your device with the Tesseract OCR engine, in 19 languages, and gives you plain text to copy or download. The images are not uploaded. ## How to use it 1. Choose or drop one or more photos or screenshots. 2. Pick the language of the text. 3. Press Get the text. 4. Copy the text from the preview, or download it as a .txt file. ## What it works on - **Screenshots** of apps, chats and web pages: usually near-perfect, because the letters are sharp. - **Photos of printed pages**, notices, labels and receipts: hold the phone straight above the page, in good light. - **Scanned PDFs**: every page is read, with a marker where each one starts. Handwriting and stylised logos are not read reliably. ## Several images at once Add as many images as you like and drag them into order: you get one text file with a heading per image. Want a document instead? Choose **Searchable PDF** under Result to get a PDF with the photos as pages and the text searchable, the same as [OCR PDF](https://sharelargefilesfree.com/tools/ocr-pdf). ## Languages and privacy 19 languages, from English and Spanish to Hindi, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. English is built in; other languages download their recognition data once. The recognition happens in your browser, so screenshots with personal details never leave your device. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I get text from an image? Add the image, pick the language and press Get the text. Copy the result or download it as a .txt file. ### Does it work with screenshots? Yes, and they give the best results because the text is sharp. ### Is it free and private? Yes. No sign-up, no limit on the number of images, and the images are processed on your device. ### Can it read handwriting? Not reliably. It is made for printed and on-screen text.