Pay as You Go
No commitment
£15 $15 €15 / 100 pages
One-time purchase. Valid for 1 year.
- AI-enhanced formatting
- Export to Markdown (plain text)
- Export to Microsoft Word
- Two-factor authentication
- API access
- No commitment
- Valid for 1 year
Image to text
Turn any image into text, including the handwriting other converters can’t read.
Photos, scans, screenshots, PDFs. Upload an image and get clean, editable text back in seconds. Most image-to-text tools only handle printed text. Handwriting OCR was built for the hard images too: cursive, messy notes, and old documents.
- ✓Reads handwriting and print, not just neat typed text
- ✓Photos, scans, screenshots, and PDFs (JPG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF, GIF)
- ✓Export to Word, PDF, plain text or JSON, in 300+ languages
- ✓Private by default: encrypted, never trained on, auto-deleted
Complete
Where image-to-text tools differ
Most read print. This one reads handwriting.
For a clean screenshot or a typed page, almost any OCR tool works. The real divide is handwriting, and that is what Handwriting OCR is built for.
Feature
Typical image-to-text tools
Handwriting OCR
Printed text
Good
Good
Cursive & messy handwriting
Weak or unsupported
Built for it
Old / historical hands
No
Yes, scripts across centuries
File types
Often JPG/PNG only
PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF, HEIC, TIFF
Languages
Limited
300+, with translation built in
Export
Plain text
Word, PDF, TXT, JSON (Excel on Pro)
Batch / multi-page
One image at a time
Whole batches and multi-page PDFs
Privacy
Varies
Encrypted, never trained on, auto-deleted
'Typical image-to-text tools' means free online converters and built-in phone OCR (e.g. Apple Live Text, Google Drive OCR), which are optimised for printed text. Capabilities current as of June 2026.
A real photo, not a clean scan
One messy handwriting photo, read by each tool
We took one of the messiest journal photos people have shared online, ran it through a typical handwriting scanning app and through Handwriting OCR, and put the raw output side by side. No cleanup, no cherry-picking.
A messy handwritten journal page, faded ink, photographed not scanned
Original
Click to enlarge Handwriting OCR near-perfect · struck words kept
Jan 26 2018
Classes have started back up. Not too bad so far, just trying to keep on top of things. Going to work on a paper tomorrow, hopefully I can get my brain in gear. I don't know why, but it's just been a desert lately. Nothing forms, just a wasteland, but I guess even a wasteland eventually blooms life. Just need to fight through this funk or find some sort of inspiration. Why does my pen always fade? Is it the way I got to write? Or the pen itself? Maybe I'll try to use those art pens to add more color to these pages.
Work was pretty boring, not much happened. Just was talking to my coworker about schooling and my "best friend" just med until she needs me abandoning was to think about cutting her out, because she isn't doing it maliciously, just doesn't really listen when both Mom and I tell her "hey, you can't just drop your friends like that", but oh well...
Typical scanning app (Pen to Print) fragments, dropped & out of order
ganze 2016 Classes have started back up. Not too bad Di wat things. trying to Sounes to keep on top work on iper tomorrow hopefully + canget my brain is gear & don't know why, but its deser just been a lately. Nothing wasteland Just even wasteland eventuale life. Ris funk or need to fight my guess Obloany through one 500 en always ade vay & got to write? sen those or e color Work was maybe D' art pers to the Zetty the Of the try to adc Dags boring not much happened talking 10 aworker about ny "best friend" jest ne until Shooting and She needs m abandoning ts, DO because to think about cutting her out she isn't doing just doesn't really booth MomandA can't just drop your friends oh well. it maliciously lister when Stall here "hey, you like that, fine DE does my
misread
crossed out
Notes
- Same image, same day. Handwriting OCR returned the full page in order; the scanning app dropped and scrambled most of it, starting with the date (it read 'Jan 26 2018' as 'ganze 2016').
- The struck-through 'med' is exactly what the writer crossed out, caught as struck text you can keep or drop on export.
Source: Original image: r/Journaling. Run through both tools, June 2026.
Any image, any source
Photos, scans, screenshots, PDFs
Snap a photo of a letter, scan a page, screenshot a document, or drop in a multi-page PDF. The AI handles uneven lighting, phone-camera angles, and mixed pages of handwriting and print. Upload many files at once and come back to finished text.
- ✓ JPG, PNG, HEIC, GIF, TIFF and PDF, all in one place
- ✓ Whole batches and long PDFs processed together, not one at a time
- ✓ Mixed handwriting-and-print pages handled in a single pass
The hard part
Built for handwriting, not just print
A photo of a typed page is easy. A photo of someone's handwriting is where ordinary image-to-text tools fall apart. Handwriting OCR is trained specifically on handwritten images, so cursive, connected letters, faded ink and older hands come back as real text, not garbled fragments.
- ✓ Cursive, mixed print-and-cursive, and hands from across the centuries
- ✓ Keeps punctuation, capitalisation and layout instead of guessing
- ✓ Materially more accurate on handwriting than Google Drive OCR, Adobe or Apple Live Text
From people who tried the other tools first
They uploaded the images other converters couldn't read
"I'd tried Google Lens, Transkribus and Pen2Text. Handwriting OCR has by far the best transcription, and it's not even close."
A.M.
400+ documents, old-school cursive
"I uploaded two images of an 1820 will and was totally impressed, 80 to 90% accuracy on a 200-year-old hand."
Heather K.
Family history researcher
"I tried it on a messy page of my college notes. It was by far and away the clear winner, extremely accurate."
John L.
Library systems coordinator
Private by default
Your images stay yours
Files are encrypted in transit and at rest, never used to train our models, and auto-deleted on a schedule you set (default 7 days, anywhere from 15 minutes to 14 days).
Read it in any language
300+ languages, translation included
Extract text from an image in French, German, Spanish or any of 300+ languages, then translate it in the same workflow at no extra cost.
Use it your way
Export, or automate via API
Get text back as Word, PDF, TXT or JSON. Need it in your own software? A first-party API is on every plan, including the free trial.
Being straight
When a free converter is all you need
If your images are clean and the text is typed, a free image-to-text tool will do the job and cost nothing. It is worth paying for Handwriting OCR when the image is harder than that.
- ✓The text is handwritten, cursive, faded, or historical
- ✓You have many pages, not the occasional screenshot
- ✓You need the result in Word, Excel or JSON, or via an API
Pricing
Plans for every project
Pay-as-you-go credits or monthly subscriptions. Cancel any time.
Starter
250 pages / month
£19 $19 €19 £16 $16 €16 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- AI-enhanced formatting
- Export to Markdown (plain text)
- Export to Microsoft Word
- Two-factor authentication
- API access
- Renews monthly, cancel any time
- Additional pages: £6.00 $8.00 €6.50 £5.50 $6.00 €6.00 / 100 pages
Pro
1,000 pages / month
£49 $59 €59 £41 $50 €50 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- Everything in Starter, plus:
- Export tables to Microsoft Excel
- Custom extractors
- Additional pages: £5.00 $6.00 €5.00 £5.00 $5.00 €5.00 / 100 pages
Business
10,000 pages / month
£399 $499 €490 £333 $416 €409 /month
Billed monthlyBilled annually
- Everything in Pro, plus:
- Up to 5 team members
- Configurable audit logging
- Additional pages: £4.00 $5.00 €4.50 £3.50 $4.00 €4.00 / 100 pages
For higher volumes, options for offline deployment, or any other custom requirements, please contact us.
FAQ
Image to text: common questions
Anything else? Get in touch and we'll answer right away.
What image formats can I convert to text?
Upload PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF, HEIC or TIFF. Phone photos, flatbed scans, and screenshots all work. Multi-page PDFs are processed page by page in a single upload.
Can it convert an image of handwriting to text?
Yes, and that is the point. Most image-to-text converters are built for printed text and struggle on handwriting. Handwriting OCR is built specifically for handwritten images: cursive, messy notes, and historical hands, as well as printed text.
How accurate is image to text conversion?
On clear printed text, accuracy is high, as it is with most OCR tools. The difference shows on handwriting, where general image-to-text tools, phone OCR like Apple Live Text, and Google Drive OCR fall behind. Accuracy depends on the original image, so the honest way to judge it is to run your own page on the free trial.
What can I export the text to?
Text comes back as TXT, Word (DOCX), PDF or JSON. Tabular documents can be extracted to Excel on the Pro plan and up. You can also translate the extracted text into and out of 300+ languages in the same workflow.
Is it free?
New accounts start with free trial credits, no credit card needed, so you can convert a few images before paying. After that, pay-as-you-go is $0.15 per page (100 for $15) and subscriptions start at $19 per month.
Are my images kept private?
Your files are encrypted in transit and at rest, are never used to train our models, and auto-delete on a schedule you control (default 7 days, configurable from 15 minutes to 14 days).
Try it on your own image
Bring the photo other converters couldn’t read.
Free trial credits, no credit card. Upload the image you’re stuck on and see the text come back in seconds.
Our experience
What people actually convert
Most people who search for an “image to text” tool do not have a clean screenshot. They have a photo: a grandmother’s letter, a page of lecture notes, a form filled in by hand, an old record from an archive. Generic converters and phone OCR do a fair job the moment the text is neatly typed, and fall apart the moment it is not.
That gap, handwriting in a real-world photo, is the whole reason Handwriting OCR exists. We process thousands of these images every week: messy, faded, cursive, multi-page, in dozens of languages. The text above is one of them, run through a typical scanning app and through our own, with nothing cleaned up.
If you have an image you are stuck on, the fastest way to judge it is to try it free on that exact photo.