What Is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that extracts text from images, screenshots, scanned documents, and photographs. Our browser-based OCR tool uses the Tesseract.js engine to analyze images and identify text characters, converting them into editable, searchable text. All processing happens locally in your browser—no data is ever uploaded to a server.
How to Get the Best Results
For optimal OCR accuracy, use high-resolution images with clear, sharp text. Screenshots of code, documents, or web pages with standard fonts produce the best results. Avoid heavily compressed images, handwritten text, or images with complex backgrounds. Good lighting and high contrast between text and background significantly improve recognition rates.
Common Use Cases
- Digitizing printed documents: Convert physical papers or PDF scans into editable digital text.
- Extracting code from screenshots: Capture code snippets from tutorials, videos, or presentations.
- Archiving receipts and invoices: Pull text from photos of receipts for expense tracking.
- Accessibility: Convert image-based text to screen-reader-compatible content.
Limitations of OCR
While OCR has improved dramatically, it still has limitations. Handwriting recognition is less accurate than printed text. Very small fonts, decorative typefaces, and low-resolution images may produce errors. Complex layouts with multiple columns or tables can also be challenging. Always review extracted text for accuracy before using it in critical applications.