What is OCR?
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. In plain terms, it is software that looks at a picture of text—like a screenshot, scan, or photo—and guesses which letters and numbers are shown, then outputs normal Unicode text you can paste into email, code editors, or spreadsheets. Modern OCR engines such as Tesseract analyze shapes, baselines, and language statistics. They work best on crisp, high-contrast text (think system UI, PDF exports viewed as images, or photos of slides with large fonts). OCR is not magic: blurry captures, tiny footnotes, or decorative fonts can still confuse the model, which is why we show a progress bar and let you pick the document language to improve accuracy.
How to Extract Text from a Screenshot
- Upload or paste an image (drag-and-drop, file picker, or Ctrl+V). Keep files under 10MB.
- Choose the OCR language that matches the text in your screenshot (for example English, Spanish, or Arabic).
- Click “Extract text” and wait while Tesseract runs locally in your browser.
- Review, copy, or export — use Copy all, download .txt, or open in Word with the .docx button.
When to Use Screenshot OCR
- Copying text from PDFs that were exported as flat images or password-protected viewers
- Extracting data from scanned documents or fax-style images shared in chat
- Getting text from screenshots of websites when copy-paste is disabled
- Copying error messages, logs, or dialog text from system screenshots for support tickets
- Pulling text from photos of whiteboards or conference slides when you only have the picture
Supported Languages
This tool uses Tesseract trained data files. The selector includes: English (eng), Spanish (spa), French (fra), German (deu), Arabic (ara), Urdu (urd), and Chinese Simplified (chi_sim). The first time you use a language in this browser session, the corresponding model is downloaded and cached locally—no server upload required.
Is OCR 100% Accurate?
No OCR system is perfect. Accuracy rises with resolution, sharp focus, and clear contrast between text and background. Small fonts, italics, all-caps logos, and low-light photos introduce errors. If a page mixes languages, pick the dominant one or run twice with different models. Always proofread financial figures, legal clauses, and code snippets before relying on them in production. Handwriting and cursive are especially difficult; treat those results as drafts unless the ink is very neat and large.
Privacy — Is My Screenshot Safe?
Yes. OCR here runs entirely in your browser with Tesseract.js: your image bytes stay on your device, and we do not send the screenshot to EditScreenshot.online servers for recognition. Network activity you may see is the browser fetching Tesseract core and language data files from public CDNs on first use—standard for client-side OCR. Clear your site data if you want to remove cached models from disk.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is this OCR tool free?
- Yes — no payment and no signup required.
- What image formats work?
- PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and similar raster formats up to 10MB.
- How accurate is the text extraction?
- It varies with image quality; use the right language and a sharp screenshot for best results.
- Can I extract text from handwriting?
- Only sometimes—printed text and UI copy work far more reliably.
- Does it work with Arabic or Urdu text?
- Yes. Choose Arabic or Urdu in the language menu before extracting.
- What is the maximum file size?
- 10 megabytes per upload.