How to Copy Text From an Image (Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android)

By Thiago · Updated October 29, 2026 · 3 min read

A screenshot of an error message, a photo of a notice, a scanned letter: the words are right there, but you cannot select them. Every major system now has a way to copy that text, and when yours does not, a browser tool does the job without installing anything.

The quick answer

The technology is called OCR (optical character recognition). It finds the letters in a picture and turns them into real text you can copy, edit and search. You probably already have it on your phone or computer:

When a browser tool is the better choice

• Older systems: Windows 10 has no Text actions in its Snipping Tool, and older iPhones do not have Live Text.
• Long text: selecting a whole page with your finger is fiddly. A tool that returns the full text in a box is quicker to copy or save as a TXT file.
• Someone else's computer: nothing to install, and with ConvertKiwi's Image to Text the image is read inside the browser, so it is never uploaded.

Step by step with Image to Text

1. Open Image to Text and drop a JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF or BMP image, or paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V.
2. Choose the language of the text: English, Portuguese or Spanish. The engine uses a dictionary for that language, so the right choice makes a real difference.
3. Click Extract text. The first time takes a few extra seconds because your browser downloads the reading engine and the language file (about 4 MB plus 1.4 to 3 MB). After that they are cached.
4. Read the result, fix any mistakes, then Copy it or Download TXT.

A picture saved as .jfif? Our Image to Text tool does not list that extension, so first run it through JFIF to JPG, which only renames the file without touching the picture.

How to get fewer mistakes

OCR is very accurate on clean screenshots: in our tests, typed text with accents, prices, phone numbers and times came out exactly right. Photos of paper are where errors appear, and almost always for the same reasons:

• Angle: shoot the page straight on, not from the side. Tilted lines are the most common cause of jumbled words.
• Light: avoid your own shadow across the page and glare on glossy paper.
• Size: get close enough that the text fills most of the photo. Tiny letters lose their shape.
• Crop: cut away logos, photos and borders so only the text remains.
• Contrast: dark text on a light background reads best. White text on a colored background is harder.

What about PDFs?

First try selecting the text in your PDF reader. If it highlights, the PDF already contains real text and you can simply copy it. If nothing gets selected, the PDF is a scan made of pictures: save the pages as images with PDF to JPG (it runs in your browser too), then read each page with Image to Text.

Common questions

Can OCR read handwriting?

Not reliably. The engines described here are made for printed text. Neat capital letters sometimes work; cursive usually does not.

Does it keep the formatting?

You get plain text with line breaks. Bold, fonts, columns and tables are not kept, so long documents may need some tidying after you paste them.

Is it safe for private documents?

With the ConvertKiwi tool the picture never leaves your device, because the recognition runs in your browser. The built-in Windows, Mac and iPhone features also work on the device itself.