If you have text trapped in a screenshot, OCR is the fastest way to get it back.
Start here:
- Open Image to Text (OCR).
- Upload an image.
- Copy the extracted text.
Textavia's OCR runs locally in your browser.
Quick start: extract text in under a minute
- Open Image to Text (OCR).
- Upload a screenshot or photo.
- Set Min confidence to
50%as a starting point. - Choose an output:
- Plain text for copying into notes, docs, or chat
- JSON if you want bounding boxes and confidence values
- Copy the result.
If you are missing characters, jump to How to improve OCR accuracy.
What OCR is (in plain English)
OCR stands for optical character recognition.
It looks at pixels, finds shapes that resemble letters, then outputs text. It is great for:
- screenshots
- scanned documents
- photos of printed pages
It is not magic. Low-resolution images and handwriting can still be hard.
How to improve OCR accuracy
1) Use a sharp image
A crisp screenshot will beat a blurry photo every time.
If you can capture a screenshot instead of photographing a screen, do that.
2) Increase contrast
Dark text on a light background is easiest.
If the text is light gray on white or neon on black, expect mistakes.
3) Fix rotation and skew
If your photo is tilted, OCR will often merge lines or split words.
Rotate the image before uploading when possible.
4) Tune the confidence threshold
If you set Min confidence too high, you will drop characters.
Try:
30%when you prefer "include everything" and you will clean it manually60–70%when you want cleaner output and can accept missing uncertain text
5) Choose the right join mode
If your goal is a paragraph, join with spaces.
If your goal is a document layout, join with new lines.
Examples
Example 1 (beginner): copy text from a screenshot
Use case: you have a screenshot of an address, a tracking number, or a short message.
- Upload the screenshot.
- Output: Plain text.
- Join lines with: Spaces.
Example 2 (beginner): extract a recipe from a photo
Use case: a photo of a recipe card or printed page.
- Upload the image.
- Join lines with: New lines.
- Lower Min confidence if you lose ingredient units.
Example 3 (professional): extract an error message from a crash screenshot
Use case: you need to paste an exact error into a bug report.
- Upload the screenshot.
- Keep Min confidence at
50%. - If punctuation is wrong, switch to JSON output and inspect what the OCR engine "saw".
Example 4 (professional): turn a scanned table into usable data
OCR can read tables, but it may not preserve structure.
Approach:
- Extract the text.
- Then clean it into a structured format (CSV, JSON) depending on your use case.
Common OCR issues (and what to do)
| Problem | Why it happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Missing characters | confidence filter removed them | lower Min confidence |
| Weird spacing | OCR grouped boxes differently | try joining with new lines, then reformat |
| "O" becomes "0" | similar shapes | sanity-check numbers like serials and codes |
| Text is jumbled | rotated or skewed input | rotate/crop before upload |
| Handwriting is wrong | handwriting varies a lot | retype key fields; OCR is best for printed text |
Troubleshooting
"First run is slow"
The first OCR run downloads model assets into your browser. After that, they are cached for faster scans.
"The output looks right, but I need the original formatting"
OCR gives you text, not a perfect document layout.
If you need structure, extract text first, then rebuild layout in your editor.
"I need to share the result"
If you extracted JSON, format it with the JSON formatter before you paste it into a ticket or doc.
If you only do 3 things
- Use a screenshot when possible.
- Lower confidence if you are missing characters.
- Rotate and crop so the text fills the frame.
Related tools
- Resize large images before processing with Image Resizer & Compressor.
- Format OCR JSON output with the JSON formatter.
Privacy and security
Textavia's OCR runs locally in your browser. Your image is not uploaded to a server.