JPEG is the format most phones and cameras use for photos and the format most websites use for pictures. So when you need words out of an image, the file you have is usually a JPG: a receipt you photographed, a page from a printed report, a flyer someone sent you, a menu, or an infographic saved from a web page.
This page reads all of them. Image to Text App looks at the image, picks a reading mode, and gives you plain text you can copy straight away. If the JPG is a receipt, it can switch to Receipt or invoice mode and pull out the business name, date, items and total. There’s more on that on the receipt OCR page.
Why JPEG text needs a little more care
JPEG keeps files small by discarding detail the eye barely notices. Unfortunately, text is exactly the kind of detail it damages. The crisp edge between dark ink and light paper picks up a faint, blotchy halo, and small marks such as the dot on an i, a decimal point or a comma can blend into the background.
A clean JPEG of reasonably sized text reads well. Most mistakes come from small text in a heavily compressed file. The damage also adds up: every time a photo is re-saved or sent through a messaging or social app, it can be compressed again. If a picture has been forwarded a few times, ask for the original or take a fresh photo.
Getting a clean read from a JPG
- Use the biggest version you have. Auto improve enlarges small text before reading, but it can’t bring back detail that compression has already thrown away.
- Crop to the text you want. A tight crop removes background patterns and edges that can turn into stray characters.
- Leave Auto improve on. It evens out lighting and shadows, straightens a slight tilt and boosts contrast, and it lists every step it took. Press and hold Compare to see the original.
- Try the manual tools for problem images. If speckles come through as stray punctuation, try Reduce noise. If letters look soft, add a little Sharpen, but not too much, because heavy sharpening can exaggerate compression blotches.
Phone photos that arrive sideways
Phone cameras often store a photo sideways and add a small note (the EXIF orientation tag) that says which way is up. Image to Text App follows that note, so most phone JPGs appear the right way round without you doing anything.
Some apps strip that note when they save or share a photo. That’s why a picture can look fine in your gallery and sideways somewhere else. If it happens here, rotate the image and read it again. For a page photographed at an angle rather than just turned, see photo to text, which covers four-corner straightening and better ways to take the photo.
A note for iPhone users: iPhones save photos as HEIC by default and only use JPG when the camera is set to Most Compatible. Both formats work, so there’s no need to convert anything first.
Images saved from the web
For a picture on a web page, you don’t have to download it first. Right-click the image, choose to copy it, and press Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac) anywhere on this page. You can also paste the image’s link (URL). If a link won’t load, save the image and drop the file in instead.
Text that was laid over a photo, such as a quote on a social media post or a caption on a banner, reads best when it’s large and has strong contrast with what’s behind it. Busy backgrounds are where you’ll see the most words to check.
What you get back
On this page the result is plain text, ready to copy with one click or download as a .txt file. The same result can also be downloaded as Word, PDF, Markdown, HTML or JSON, or as a searchable PDF that keeps the JPG’s appearance and adds selectable text.
The image and the text sit side by side. Click any line of text and its place lights up on the image, which makes it quick to check a number or a name against the original. Words the engine was unsure about are underlined, and a button jumps from one to the next.
Limits worth knowing
Clear printed text in a decent JPG is usually read very accurately. Expect more corrections with small text in a large photo, dim or blurry shots, decorative fonts, and handwriting, which has its own handwriting to text page with honest advice. The overall confidence level (high, fair or low) is a guide to how much checking a result needs, not a guarantee.
If you’re saving a screenshot yourself and have a choice of format, PNG keeps text sharper than JPG. The PNG to text page explains why.