Look for a safe image to text converter for extracting text from pictures

Powershell + Windows OCR is a good picture to text converter you can use. Windows OCR​​ is a built-in feature in Windows 10 and 11 that extracts text from images, scanned documents, or screenshots.

Step 1: Install Required Language Packs​​

1. Go to ​​Settings > Time & Language > Language​​
2. Under "Preferred languages," add your language (e.g., English)
3. Click the language → ​​Options​​ → Download "​​OCR for [language]​​" under "Language features"

Step 2: PowerShell Script​

# Load Windows OCR assembly
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Drawing
[void][Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine, Windows.Foundation, ContentType = WindowsRuntime]

# Load the image
$imagePath = "C:\path\to\image.png"
$bitmap = [System.Drawing.Bitmap]::FromFile($imagePath)

# Convert to WinRT Stream
$memoryStream = New-Object System.IO.MemoryStream
$bitmap.Save($memoryStream, [System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat]::Png)
$memoryStream.Position = 0
$randomAccessStream = [Windows.Storage.Streams.RandomAccessStream]::CreateFromStream($memoryStream)

# Create OCR engine
$ocrEngine = [Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine]::TryCreateFromUserProfileLanguages()
if ($ocrEngine -eq $null) {
    Write-Host "OCR engine could not be initialized. Check language packs."
    exit
}

# Perform OCR
$ocrResult = $ocrEngine.RecognizeAsync([Windows.Graphics.Imaging.SoftwareBitmap]::CreateCopyFromBuffer(
    $randomAccessStream.GetInputStreamAt(0),
    [Windows.Graphics.Imaging.BitmapPixelFormat]::Bgra8,
    $bitmap.Width,
    $bitmap.Height,
    [Windows.Graphics.Imaging.BitmapAlphaMode]::Premultiplied
)).GetAwaiter().GetResult()

# Output the text
$ocrResult.Text | Out-File -FilePath "C:\output\text.txt"
Write-Host "Text extracted to C:\output\text.txt"

Step 3: Run the Script​​ Save as ExtractText.ps1 to extract text from images on Windows 11/10:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope Process -Force 
.\ExtractText.ps1

This is a free image to text converter you can use on any Windows 11 or Windows 10 computer!