Turn a screenshot of an app, chat or website into text

Screenshots that are worth turning into text

A screenshot is a picture, so its words cannot be selected, searched or pasted. Reading the text turns them back into plain text. That helps most when the words have to go somewhere else:

• Error messages and dialog boxes that you want to paste into a bug report or a search.
• Settings pages, menus and instructions that you want to quote in a help article or a note.
• Chat and email threads, when you need the exact wording of a message that you are allowed to use.
• Slides shared on a video call, when the presenter does not send the deck.
• PDF pages. PDFs are not accepted, but a screenshot of one page works.

Capture the screen so the words read cleanly

Letters on a screen can be only a few pixels tall, so how you capture the screen affects the text you get back. These habits help the most:

• Use the original screenshot file. A copy that was shrunk or compressed when it was shared gives the AI less detail to work with.
• Zoom in before you capture, so small interface text is larger in the file.
• Crop to the area with the text, so the image holds only what you want to copy.
• Keep to one screen per image. For a long page, take several screenshots and read them one at a time, because an account reads one image at a time.

Check the text, then respect who it belongs to

Small, blurry, low-contrast or heavily stylized text can be misread or skipped, and interface screenshots often contain small gray captions, timestamps and labels. Compare the text with the screenshot before you rely on it, especially names, numbers, prices and email addresses.

Screenshots also tend to show other people. A chat holds names and messages written by someone else, and a contact page holds phone numbers and email addresses. Copy only what you are allowed to use, and take out personal details before you paste the text into a report, a forum or a shared document. Your screenshot stays in My images, private to your account, until you delete it.

If you want to share the screenshot itself with those details cleared, the Remove text tool can take them out of the image. It changes the image, so it uses credits.