Image to text on your phone: extract text from photos and scans offline
Updated
Doc Scanner is an image to text app for iPhone and Android that pulls the words out of photos, screenshots and paper documents with AI-powered text recognition running on your phone. Point the camera at a page in Extract Text mode, or pick a picture you already have, and you get selectable text to copy, share or save as a TXT or Word file. Text extraction is part of Premium.
Recognition works offline and nothing is uploaded for it, so letters, invoices and contracts stay on your device. Doc Scanner by Ginowl shows no ads, stamps no watermarks and needs no sign-up.
Scan with your phone camera to get the app
Doc Scanner by Ginowl — iPhone & Android · Free to download
How to extract text from an image with Doc Scanner
Open Extract Text
Tap the camera button and choose Extract Text in the mode bar, or open the Tools tab and tap Extract Text. Extract Text is a Premium feature.
Frame the text and shoot
Hold your phone parallel to the page so the text fills most of the frame, then tap the shutter. Already have the picture? Tap the photo button next to the shutter and pick it from your gallery.
Check the recognized text
Doc Scanner reads the image on your phone and opens the result in the Recognized Text sheet. Select any part of it, or take it all.
Copy or share it
Tap Copy text to paste the words into a note, an e-mail or a form, or tap Share to send them straight to another app.
Do whole documents
For a document with several pages, scan it in Document or Batch mode, open it and tap Convert in the bottom toolbar. You get the text of every page, with Copy text and Share as TXT (Premium).
Save a Word or TXT file
Open Tools, tap Convert to DOC or Convert to TXT, pick the document and send the file through your phone's share sheet (Premium).
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where recognition runs | On your phone (Google ML Kit), not on a server |
| Internet needed | No, text recognition works offline |
| What it reads | Camera photos, pictures from your gallery, scanned documents and imported PDFs |
| What you get | Copy text, Share, TXT file or Word (.docx) file with the recognised text |
| Languages | Latin-alphabet text, such as English, Spanish, French, German and Turkish |
| Plan | Text extraction is Premium; the searchable text layer in exported PDFs is free |
Copy text from a photo or scan
Retyping is slow and full of typos. With Doc Scanner you take one photo and the words are ready to paste. People use it to grab:
- an invoice number, IBAN or reference code from a bill
- a quote or a paragraph from a book page for an essay
- an address or phone number from a letter or a flyer
- the ingredients from a recipe card
- a clause from a printed contract you want to send to someone
- the text of a handout, a notice or a sign
Extract Text is the quick route for one page or one picture: shoot, read, copy. For a full document, scan it first (the camera finds the edges, straightens the page and captures it for you), then tap Convert to read every page in one go. That also works on PDFs you bring in with Import PDF.
Get the cleanest result
- Use soft, even light and avoid your own shadow over the page.
- Lay the page flat; curled pages and folds bend the lines of text.
- Tilt glossy paper or laminated cards slightly to kill glare.
- Fill the frame with the text and keep the phone parallel to the page.
- Printed text in a clear font reads best; tiny or faded print may need a closer shot.
Works offline, nothing uploaded
Most image to text websites ask you to upload your picture to their server and wait for a result. Doc Scanner does the work on the phone itself with Google ML Kit's on-device text recognition. Your photo of a bank letter, a medical bill or an ID never leaves your device to be read.
Because nothing is uploaded, it also works with no signal at all: in a basement archive, on a plane, abroad without roaming or in a library with weak Wi-Fi. If you want a scanner that keeps working off the grid, see our offline scanner app page.
Export as TXT or Word (plain text)
Copying is enough for a phone number. For longer documents, save a file instead:
- TXT: the recognised text of every page in one plain text file. Light, opens anywhere, perfect for notes or for pasting into another app.
- Word (.docx): the same recognised text as paragraphs in a Word document, ready to open in Word, Pages or Google Docs and work on from there.
Both files hold the text only, not the original layout, columns or images, which keeps them clean and easy to rework. Both are Premium. Read more on how to scan to Word and how to pull text out of a PDF.
Supported languages
Text recognition reads Latin-alphabet languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian, Swedish and Danish.
Text in other scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese or Russian, is not recognised. You can still scan those documents, sign them and export them as PDF or JPG. Separately, the app's interface is available in 21 languages, with light and dark mode.
Free searchable PDFs vs Premium text extraction
Two different things, both powered by the same on-device recognition:
- Searchable PDFs (free plan). Every PDF you export from Doc Scanner gets an invisible text layer, so you can search the document for a word in any PDF reader. Nothing to switch on. See how searchable PDFs work.
- Text extraction (Premium). The Extract Text camera mode, the Recognized Text screen behind Convert, and TXT or Word files. This is for when you need the words themselves, to copy, edit or reuse.
So if your goal is a PDF you can search later, the free plan has you covered. If you need to paste or rework the text, that's Premium.
iPhone and Android
Doc Scanner works the same way on iPhone (iOS 15.5 or later) and on Android phones (Android 7.0 or later), with the same modes and buttons. On iPhone your documents also show up in Spotlight search by title and recognised text.
Your phone already has a free trick for quick grabs: Live Text on iPhone and Google Lens on Android let you select text in a photo. They're great for a single line. Doc Scanner is built for documents: it scans and straightens many pages into one PDF, reads every page at once, saves the text as TXT or Word (Premium), keeps everything in folders and gives you searchable PDFs on the free plan. Scanning a stack first? Here's how to scan multiple pages into one PDF.
See Doc Scanner in action
Scan your first document in seconds
Doc Scanner is free to download for iPhone and Android. No ads, no watermarks, no sign-up required.
Scan with your phone camera to get the app
Frequently asked questions
How do I extract text from an image on my phone?
In Doc Scanner, open the camera, choose Extract Text, frame the text and take a photo, or tap the photo button to pick a picture from your gallery. The text appears in the Recognized Text sheet, where you can tap Copy text or Share. Extract Text is part of Premium.
Does image to text work offline?
Yes. Doc Scanner recognises text on your phone with Google ML Kit, so it works without an internet connection and nothing is uploaded for recognition.
Which languages does it recognise?
Latin-alphabet languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian, Swedish and Danish. Text in other scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese or Russian, is not recognised, although you can still scan and export those documents as PDF or JPG.
Is text extraction free?
Doc Scanner is free to download and has a free plan for scanning, signing and exporting PDFs, and exported PDFs are searchable on the free plan. Premium unlocks text extraction (Extract Text and the Recognized Text screen), TXT and Word files, ID card mode, password-protected PDFs and more.
Can I turn a photo into a Word document?
Yes, with Premium. Scan or import the photo, then open Tools and tap Convert to DOC. You get a Word (.docx) file with the recognised text as plain paragraphs, without the original layout or images.
Is my photo uploaded when I extract text?
No. Scanning, image processing and text recognition happen on your phone. Doc Scanner doesn't send your picture to a server to read it.
Doc Scanner is not affiliated with Apple, Google and Microsoft. Trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Related pages
- Searchable PDFMake a PDF searchable for free on iPhone or Android. Doc Scanner adds an invisible text layer to every PDF it exports, offline, with no upload needed.
- Offline scannerDoc Scanner is an offline scanner app for iPhone and Android: scan, make searchable PDFs and recognize text on your phone, with no internet needed.
- JPG to PDFConvert JPG to PDF on iPhone or Android: combine several photos into one PDF, reorder pages, pick A4 or Letter. No watermark, no upload, on the free plan.