How To Convert Images To Text On Your Mobile Device

Mobile devices have become an integral part of our everyday life. We are using them for so many things that it is becoming increasingly difficult to list them all. Due to the progress of modern technology, today we can use mobile devices to convert our files. If you need to convert images to text, there are many tools you can use for this purpose. Find out how to easily extract text from images or documents using OCR technology or, to be more precise, how to convert images to text on your mobile device.

How To Convert Images To Text On iPhone (or iPad)

There are many converters on the market that can help you convert images to text using OCR (optical character recognition). When it comes to iOS users, here are some of our recommendations.

1 Apple’s Live Text Feature

As the first option, we suggest this handy feature that enables text recognition in images. You guessed it – Live Text features optical character recognition. Whether you have a photo of a handwritten note in your photos or a photo of the paragraph from the book you just read – you can copy it and paste it into another app or share it with someone.

How to Use Live Text on iPhone (and iPad)

Accessing the Live Text feature is easy as it is built directly into the camera app.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Open the Camera app.
2. Get the image you want to capture within the camera frame.
3. Tap the Live Text button that appears in the bottom right of the image.
4. Tap the text in the image and select it.
5. Select Copy from the menu.
6. Open the destination document, such as Notes or Messages, then tap on Paste.

Live Text With Photos in Your Library

Copy text from an existing photo:

1. Open the Photos app.
2. Open the photo with the text you want to use.
3. Select the text area in the image.
4. Select Copy.
5. Paste it into your destination document.

Tip: Before you try to use Live Text, make sure the feature is enabled. Go to Settings > General > Language & Region. Turn on the switch next to Live Text if it’s turned off.

2 Convert Images to Text on an iPhone with the Google Drive App

Google Drive can also extract text from any image using built-in optical character recognition (OCR). Here’s how to use it:

1. Open the app and sign in with your Google account.
2. Tap on the + button and select Upload.
3. Choose the image that you want to convert and tap Open. The image will be uploaded to your Google Drive account.
4. To extract text from the image, tap on the three dots next to the image. Then, select Convert to text.
5. The text from the image will be saved as a Google Doc.

How To Convert Images To Text On Android

If you have an Android phone, there are quite a few different apps you can use to convert images to text. Here are some of the most popular ones.

1 Google Keep App

One option is to use the Google Keep app, a note-taking app with a built-in OCR. It works pretty consistently for digitizing documents, and it is also available for iOS users.

1. Simply open the app and tap on the + button.
2. Then, select the Choose image to import an image from your Gallery or Take photo to scan a document.
3. Open the picture, tap on the three-dot menu and choose Grab image text. The text from the image will be extracted and saved in the text note. It will be synced across all your devices.

2 Microsoft Lens App

Another option for converting images to text on an Android phone is – the Microsoft Lens app. This app integrates with OneNote and Office 365. It is also one of the best Android OCR apps for recognizing text from handwritten notes.

How to use it:

1. First, open the app and sign in with your Microsoft account.
2. Open the Microsoft Lens app and switch to Actions.
3. Point the camera to the document you wish to scan and press the Text button.
4. Crop the image and select Continue.
5. Tap Copy to copy and paste the text, or Share to share the extracted text.

3 Google Photos

Android users can extract text from images using the Google Photos app. If you do not have the app installed, you should visit the Google Play Store and install it first. Then, follow the steps below to convert images to text on your Android mobile device:

1. Open the Google Photos app and find the image you want to convert to text.
2. When you open the image, Copy Text from Image button will appear at the bottom screen. Tap on it, or use the Lens option to extract text from an image.
3. Tap and hold the text you want to copy, and tap on the Copy Text button. Paste the content from the text pane.

Convert Images to Text with Online Converter (Android, iOS)

With Online-convert’s free online OCR converter, you can convert your images or documents to text in a matter of seconds. This converter will help you extract text from images not just quickly but accurately. It supports many image file formats, including JPG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, WEBP, SVG, and many more.

How To Convert Images To Text By Using Online-Convert

1. Go to Online-convert.com on your mobile device. Scroll down and under Convert with OCR, choose Image to Text or Scan to Text converter.
2. Upload your scanned document or image or enter a link.
3. To get the best results, please select all languages your file contains. (Optional)
4. Click on the START button.
5. Success! We extracted text from your photo. You can view or download the file.

Note: Currently, the scan-to-text converter only supports machine-written text.

Conclusion

Whether you opt for one of the OCR apps or decide to convert images to text using online OCR converter, we find these presented methods to be the easiest of all. Try them yourself and see which one works the best for your conversion needs.