Extract Text From Images While Browsing the Web
Last updated: February 26, 2026
You're browsing a webpage and see text locked inside an image — a screenshot, an infographic, a quote card, or a photo of a document. You need that text, but you can't select it. PickText OCR is a free Chrome extension that extracts text from any image on a webpage using local OCR processing.
The Problem
Text embedded in images is everywhere on the web: social media posts shared as screenshots, pricing tables rendered as images, code snippets in blog post images, handwritten notes photographed and shared. Manually retyping this text is slow and error-prone. You need a way to extract it instantly, without leaving the page.
How It Works
Install the OCR extension
Install PickText OCR from the Chrome Web Store. It adds a toolbar icon and right-click context menu options.
Choose your capture method
Right-click any image and select 'Extract text from image', or click the extension icon and choose Screenshot (full page) or Select Region (draw a rectangle around specific content).
Review the extracted text
OCR runs locally using Tesseract.js WASM — your images never leave your device. Results appear with word-level confidence highlighting: green for high confidence, yellow for medium, red for low.
Copy or export the text
Click Copy to copy the extracted text to your clipboard. If tables are detected, export as CSV. Results are saved in your local history for later reference.
OCR PDF
Extract text from scanned PDFs and images with OCR — with live preview.
Extract Text
Export all text content from a PDF as a plain text file.
Extract Images
Pull all embedded images out of a PDF as individual files.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the extension upload my images to a server?
What languages does it support?
Can I OCR a specific area of the page?
Does it work on any website?
What about full PDF OCR?
Stop retyping text from images. With the PickText OCR Chrome extension, extract text from any image on any webpage in seconds — right-click, screenshot, or select a region. Everything processes locally on your device. For full PDF OCR with searchable PDF output, use the web app at oneclickpdf.net/tools/ocr.
Related Guides
How to OCR a PDF (Extract Text From Scanned Pages)
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Convert a Scanned PDF to Searchable Text
Extract text from scanned PDFs using OCR. 16 languages supported. Get searchable PDFs, plain text, or CSV from tables — free in your browser.
How to Extract Text from a PDF
Extract all text from any PDF as editable plain text. Side-by-side preview, edit inline, copy to clipboard or download as .txt — free and private.