When someone sends you a PNG of a document — a scanned contract, a photo of a form, a screenshot of an email — the text inside is locked inside the image. You can see it but you cannot click on it, copy it, search it, or edit it. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) solves this by reading the image and converting the visual text into real, editable characters.
Converting a PNG to a Word document is a two-step process: first convert the PNG to PDF, then run OCR to extract the text into Word. Both steps are free and take under a minute.
How to convert PNG to Word for free
- Step 1: Open Filero's Image to PDF tool, upload your PNG, and download the PDF. This takes about 5 seconds.
- Step 2: Open Filero's PDF to Word tool, upload the PDF. The tool automatically detects that it is a scanned image and runs OCR to extract the text.
- Download the .docx file — your text is now fully editable in Word.
No account required, nothing installed, and neither tool sends your file to a server for storage. The OCR runs in your browser using Tesseract.js.
What affects OCR accuracy?
Image resolution. Higher resolution gives OCR more pixel detail to work with. A PNG screenshot at 1920 x 1080 will OCR better than a low-resolution photo taken from across a room. If you have control over how the image is captured, capture at the highest resolution available.
Text clarity. Sharp, high-contrast black text on a white background is the ideal scenario. Faded text, coloured backgrounds, watermarks, and shadows all reduce accuracy. Increasing contrast in an image editor before running OCR can help if the source is low quality.
Font type. Standard printed fonts — Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri — OCR very accurately, often at 99% or better for clean images. Handwriting, decorative fonts, and stylised text are significantly harder for OCR to read.
Language. The OCR engine supports over 100 languages. English, French, German, Spanish, and other Latin-alphabet languages perform best. Non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese) are supported but accuracy varies.
Alternative methods
Google Docs:Upload the PNG to Google Drive, right-click it, and choose "Open with Google Docs". Google runs OCR and places the extracted text below the image in the document. You can then copy the text and paste it into Word. Free and reasonably accurate for clean images.
Microsoft OneNote:Insert the PNG into OneNote, right-click the image, and select "Copy Text from Picture". The extracted text is copied to your clipboard. Quick for single-image extractions.
Adobe Acrobat:Open the PNG in Acrobat, run OCR (Tools > Scan and OCR), then export as Word. The most accurate option for complex layouts, but requires a paid subscription.
What if the PNG has multiple pages or sections?
If you have multiple PNG images representing different pages of a document, combine them into a single PDF first using Filero's Image to PDF tool (it accepts multiple images and combines them in order), then run the whole PDF through the OCR tool. You will get a single Word document with all the text extracted.
Frequently asked questions
Will the Word document keep the original layout?
OCR extracts text content — it does not reconstruct the exact layout of the original image. You will get the text in the correct reading order, but elements like multi-column layouts, tables, and precise positioning will need to be reformatted manually. For simple documents with flowing text, the result is usually clean and requires minimal adjustment.
Can I convert a handwritten PNG to Word?
Standard OCR struggles significantly with handwriting — it is designed for printed text. Results on cursive or informal handwriting are unreliable. For handwritten content, typing it manually remains more accurate than OCR for most handwriting styles.
What if the text in my PNG is in a language other than English?
The OCR engine supports many languages automatically. It detects the language from the text content, so you do not need to specify it manually. Accuracy for major European languages is high. For less common languages, accuracy varies.
Ready to try it?
Use Filero's free PDF to Word (with OCR) tool. No account needed, works on any device.
Open PDF to Word (with OCR)