PNG to Text Converter – Extract Text from PNG Images Free
Upload a PNG and get editable text back in seconds. PNG is the most accurate format you can hand an OCR engine — here is why, and how to get the most out of it.
Why PNG Is the Best Format for OCR
PNG uses lossless compression. Every pixel you saved is the pixel the OCR engine reads. JPG uses lossy compression: to make the file smaller it throws away detail, and it throws it away hardest exactly where the image changes fastest — which, in a page of text, is the edge of every single letter.
That damage has a name: ringing artifacts. Compress a JPG hard enough and faint grey halos appear around each character. The engine sees them as part of the letter shape. This is where the classic OCR failures come from — rn read as m, cl read as d, 8 read as B. A PNG of the same page has none of it.
The difference is small on a clean, high-resolution scan and large on anything marginal: small type, low contrast, a photo taken in poor light. If you have the choice at the moment of capture, choose PNG.
How to Convert a PNG to Text
- Add your PNG – drag and drop it, click to browse, or paste straight from the clipboard with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac)
- Wait two or three seconds – the engine detects the language on its own, so there is nothing to configure
- Check the result – the extracted text appears below, ready to edit
- Copy or download – copy it to the clipboard, or save it as a
.txtfile
Screenshots Are PNGs
This is the reason most people end up on this page. Every built-in screenshot tool writes PNG by default: the Windows Snipping Tool, PrtScn, macOS Cmd+Shift+4, and the screenshot button on Android and iOS. If you screenshotted something and want the text out of it, you have a PNG, and you are in the right place.
You do not need to save the file first. Copy the screenshot to your clipboard and paste it directly into the tool above. If that is your main use case, the screenshot to text page covers the paste-and-go workflow in more detail.
The One PNG Gotcha: Transparency
PNG supports an alpha channel, so a PNG can have a transparent background. Logos, exported icons, and graphics pulled out of design tools very often do. OCR engines work on a flat image, so the transparency has to be flattened first — and it is usually flattened to black.
Dark grey text on a transparent background looks perfectly readable to you and becomes dark grey text on black to the engine. Nearly zero contrast, and the extraction comes back empty or garbled. If a PNG returns nothing and you cannot see why, transparency is the first thing to check. Open it in any image editor, put a white layer underneath, flatten, and try again.
Getting the Best Results from a PNG
- Do not convert a JPG to PNG first. Re-saving as PNG locks in the compression damage that is already there. It cannot restore detail that was discarded.
- Screenshot instead of photographing a screen. A screenshot is a pixel-perfect PNG; a phone photo of a monitor adds glare, moiré and camera blur.
- Do not scale a small PNG up. Enlarging invents pixels and blurs edges. Recapture at a higher resolution instead.
- Keep the text dark on a light background where you can. Inverted text works, but contrast is what the engine actually needs.
- Scan documents at 300 DPI or better. Below that, the small marks that distinguish similar characters start to disappear.
PNG vs JPG for Text Extraction
| Property | PNG | JPG |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossless | Lossy |
| Letter edges | Sharp | Softened by artifacts |
| File size for a page of text | Smaller | Larger |
| File size for a photograph | Much larger | Smaller |
| Transparency | Supported (watch the contrast) | Not supported |
Text, screenshots and line art belong in PNG. Photographs belong in JPG — a PNG photo is several times the size for no accuracy gain, because a camera sensor's noise gives the compressor nothing clean to preserve. Already have JPGs? They work fine here too; see the JPG to text page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is PNG to text conversion free?
Yes. Up to 25,000 images a month, with no account, no credit card and no limit on how much text a single image contains.
Why did my PNG return no text?
Transparency is the usual cause. A transparent background is flattened to black before processing, so dark text on it ends up nearly invisible to the engine. Flatten the image onto a white background and try again. Very low resolution is the other common reason.
Does PNG really give better OCR accuracy than JPG?
Yes, though the margin depends on the source. On a clean 300 DPI scan both formats do well. On small type, low contrast or a heavily compressed file, PNG's intact letter edges are a clear advantage.
Can I paste a PNG straight from my clipboard?
Yes. Press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on Mac) anywhere on this page and the image is picked up. There is no need to save it to disk first.
What is the maximum PNG file size?
10MB per image. Because PNG is lossless, a full-page screenshot can be large — if you are over the limit, crop to the region containing the text rather than reducing quality.
Does it work with PNG-8 as well as PNG-24?
Both work. PNG-8 is limited to 256 colours, which is plenty for text, and its harder edges are often slightly easier to read. PNG-24 handles gradients and anti-aliasing better.
Convert Your PNG to Text Now
Scroll back up to the PNG to text converter and drop in your file. Free, no signup, and the image is deleted right after the text comes out.