If you go through the list of menu options in Google Docs, you will not find any built-in OCR option to extract text from a picture. Before you get disappointed, you should know that there are other workarounds to extract and copy text from a picture in Google Docs. One of them involves using Google Drive. Let’s check four ways to convert an image to text in Google Docs.
Table of Contents
1. Using Google Drive
In this method, you need to upload your image to Google Drive and then open it as a Google Docs document. Google Docs will automatically convert the image to text.
Here are the steps in detail:
1. Open the drive.google.com website in a browser on your Windows or Mac and log in to your Google account.
2. Click on the New button.
3. Select File Upload. Then, select the image from which you want to copy the text. You can also drag and drop the image from your computer directly into Google Docs. The image will be uploaded to your Google Drive account.
4. Now, right-click on the image that you uploaded in Google Drive and select Open with followed by Google Docs.
5. Your image along with the extracted text will open in a Google Docs document. Copy the text and paste it into your actual Google Docs document. Or, if you want to work in this file only, then just delete the image from Google Docs and you are good to go.
Please keep the following points in mind while using this method:
- You can convert pictures in JPEG, PNG, and GIF files to images.
- You can also convert PDFs to text using this method.
- The picture should be 2MB or smaller.
- The document or picture should be right-side up. You must rotate the picture before converting it
- The text resolution should be at least 10 pixels. And the method works best for pictures having common fonts like Arial or Times New Roman.
Tip: Check out the best tips and tricks to use Google Drive.
2. Using Add-On
The above method is one of the best ways to convert images to text in Google Docs. But if you want something where you can pull text from an image directly in your Google Docs document, then, you can use a third-party image-to-text add-on.
Follow these steps to install and use the add-on to copy text from an image in Google Docs:
1. Open the Img to Docs add-on page and click on the Install button.
2. A permission pop-up will show up. Click on Continue.
3. You will be asked to log in to your Google account or choose from a Google account if you are already signed in.
4. Another permission will show up asking you to give permission to the add-on to view and manage Google Docs document. Click on Allow.
5. A confirmation pop-up might show up suggesting that the add-on has been installed.
6. Now, open your Google Docs document and click on Extensions > Image to Text -Image OCR > Start. If you don’t see it, refresh your page.
7. The add-on will open in the right sidebar. Drag and drop the image in the box or click on Click to upload and select the image.
8. The extracted text will show in the text box on the right side of your page. Click on the Insert button to insert it into your document. You can even edit the text before inserting it.
Tip: Check out other useful Google Docs add-ons.
3. Using Google Keep
If the above two methods don’t help, you can use the free note-taking app from Google known as Google Keep to extract text from a picture. Once the text has been pulled from the image, you can add it to Google Docs document directly from Google Keep.
Follow these steps for the same:
1. Open keep.google.com in a browser on your Mac or Windows computer and sign in to your Google account.
2. Click on the Image icon in the Take a Note bar at the top.
3. Select the image from which you want to extract and copy text.
4. Once the image shows in the Google Keep note, click on the three-dot icon at the bottom of the note and select Grab image text.
5. Google Keep will extract the text from the picture and show it in the same note. You can copy-paste the text to your Google Docs document. Or click on the three-dot icon again and select Copy to Google Docs.
6. The image along with its extracted text will be copied to a new document in Google Docs. You will see a confirmation pop-up at the bottom once that happens. Click on Open to view the document.
4. Using Free Image to Text Online Tools
If the above methods are unable to convert image to text, you can use free third-party image-to-text online tools. There are many tools for this purpose. We will show the steps using one such tool. You can use any other tool as well.
Note: Before you use any third-party online tool, be sure to read its terms of service as it will tell you how they use the data.
1. Open imagetotext.info in a browser on your computer.
2. Drag or drop the image or click on the Browse button and select your image.
3. The image preview will show up. Click on the Submit button.
4. Wait for a few seconds and let the tool do its job. Once done, you will see the extracted text. Click on Copy to Clipboard to get it in your computer’s clipboard from where you can paste it in any document. Or click on Download text file to download it on your computer.
Tip: You can also use onlineocr.net or ocr2edit.com/convert-to-txt to extract text from images online.
Manage Images
Hope you were able to convert the image to text in Google Docs using the above methods. Once you have the text, know how to put text on a picture in Google Docs. Also, if you are using multiple pictures in your document, learn how to keep two images side by side in Docs.
