Copy Text From Any Picture on Windows 11 - The Built-In Way and 3 Free Tools

The fastest way to copy text from a picture on Windows 11 is already on your PC: press Win + Shift + S, click Text extractor, and drag over the words.

That works for screenshots, photos, scanned letters and even paused videos. No typing it all out by hand.

Need more than a quick copy - Windows 10, another language, small print or a pile of scans? Below are four free ways, and which one suits which job.

Which One Should You Use?

1. Snipping Tool - the Built-In Way

Snipping Tool comes with Windows 11 and reads text right on your PC. There are two ways to use it.

Fastest: copy without taking a screenshot

• Open the picture so the text is on your screen.
• Press Win + Shift + S and click the Text extractor button in the bar at the top.
• Drag a box around the text.
• Click Copy all text, or highlight just the part you need and copy that.

From a screenshot you've already taken

• Take a snip as usual. It opens in the Snipping Tool window.
• Click Text actions in the toolbar. The text in the picture becomes selectable.
• Click Copy all text, or select the lines you want, right-click and copy.

Sharing the screenshot? Quick redact, in the same Text actions menu, blacks out email addresses and phone numbers in one click.

Don't see the Text extractor button? Open the Microsoft Store, go to Downloads, and update Snipping Tool.

2. PowerToys Text Extractor - One Shortcut, Anywhere

PowerToys is a free set of extras made by Microsoft, and Text Extractor is one of its most useful. It's ideal if you're on Windows 10, where Snipping Tool can't read text.

• Install PowerToys and check that Text Extractor is switched on in its settings.
• Press Win + Shift + T with the picture on screen.
• Drag a box around the text. It's copied straight away - just paste it.

Press Esc to cancel. If the text comes out wrong, the picture's language probably isn't installed in Windows - see the language fix below.

3. ShareX OCR - Best for Tricky Text

ShareX is a free screenshot tool with an OCR window that gives you more control. OCR just means software that reads text in a picture.

• Open ShareX, then click Tools and OCR.
• Drag a box around the text.
• Click Copy all in the window that opens.

• Small or blurry text? Raise the Scale factor, which enlarges the picture before reading it.
• Messy line breaks? Tick Single line to join everything into one line.
• Foreign language? The Services button sends the text to Google Translate or DeepL. That step goes online, so skip it for private text.
• Use it a lot? Give Tools, OCR its own hotkey in ShareX's settings.

4. Many Images at Once - Online Image to Text

Got a folder of photos, receipts or scanned pages? Doing them one by one gets old fast.

ConvertICO's free Image to Text converter runs in your browser with no sign-up. It takes up to 20 images at a time in 48 languages, and can save the result as a Word file or a searchable PDF.

Is the text inside a scanned PDF rather than a picture? PdfCraft can run OCR on PDFs, even a whole folder at a time. It reads Latin-alphabet text only, so English, Spanish or German are fine, but Russian or Chinese aren't.

Getting Better Results

• Zoom in first. Bigger text on screen means fewer mistakes.
• Take straight photos. Flat, sharp and well-lit pages read best. Curled or angled pages trip it up.
• Printed beats handwritten. All these tools struggle with handwriting.
• Always check numbers. A 0 can turn into an O, and a 1 into an l. Proofread before you send it anywhere.

Text Coming Out as Gibberish? Add the Language

PowerToys and ShareX use the text reader built into Windows, and it only knows the languages you have installed.

• Open Settings, then Time & language, then Language & region.
• Click Add a language, pick the one in your picture, and install it.
• Reopen the tool and choose that language in its settings.

Quick questions