You've got a photo of a document, a screenshot of text, or a scanned image. You need the text, but you don't want to type it out. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) extracts the text from the image automatically.
What is OCR?
OCR uses AI to recognize text in images. It analyzes the shapes of letters and converts them into digital text. The tool is intended primarily for clear printed text; handwriting may be less reliable.
How to OCR an image
- Open PDFly's OCR Image tool.
- Upload your image — JPG, PNG, or WebP.
- Click process — the AI extracts the text.
- Copy the extracted text from the results panel.
When to use OCR
- Document digitization: Convert paper documents to digital text.
- Screenshots: Extract text from screenshots of text.
- Translation: Extract text to translate into another language.
- Data entry: Avoid manual typing from photos.
Need to extract text from an image?
OCR your image in seconds — no signup, sent to the configured AI provider for processing.
Open OCR Image ToolFrequently Asked Questions
How accurate is image OCR?
Accuracy depends on image quality and text clarity. Clean, high-resolution images work best.
Can OCR read handwriting?
Legible handwriting may be recognized, but results can vary more than with clear printed text. Review the extracted text carefully.
What languages are supported?
There's no language setting to choose — the AI model reads whatever language appears in the image automatically. Results are generally strongest for widely-used languages.