SkanHow to copy text from a photo or a sheet of paper on iPhone
Use Live Text, which is built into the iPhone. Point the Camera at the text, tap the Live Text button when a yellow frame appears, touch and hold the text, and tap Copy. For a photo you already have, open it in Photos, tap the Live Text button and choose Copy Text. Live Text reads one picture at a time, so for a letter of several pages a scanner app that keeps the text is quicker.
Copy text with the Camera
- Open Camera and point your iPhone at the text so it fits in the frame.
- When a yellow frame appears around the text, tap the Live Text button.
- Touch and hold the text, then drag the grab points to pick the part you want.
- Tap Copy and paste it into Notes, Messages or an email. Select All takes everything in the frame.
No yellow frame? Check that Settings › Camera › Show Detected Text is on. These steps follow Apple’s guide Use Live Text with your iPhone camera.
Copy text from a photo or a screenshot
- Open the picture in Photos.
- Tap the Live Text button, then touch and hold the highlighted text.
- Pick the text with the grab points and tap Copy Text.
If the button isn’t there, turn on Live Text in Settings › General › Language & Region. It works in Safari and Quick Look too, whenever you’re looking at a picture (Apple: Interact with content in a photo or video).
Which languages Live Text reads
Apple lists Live Text for about 25 languages, English, Danish, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean among them (see the feature availability page). Printed text works best. Words go missing in blurry shots, on the curved pages of a thick book and on faded receipts, so take the photo straight on and in good light.
When the text runs to several pages
Live Text gives you the text in one picture. For a five-page contract you’d copy a page at a time and paste the pieces together. Skan scans all the pages into one PDF and reads the text on the phone: open the document, tap Show text, then Copy, and you have the text of the whole document. The PDF also gets a text layer, so you can search and copy from it later (more on making a PDF searchable).
Skan costs $1.99, once. It works without internet, there’s no account, and your scans stay on your iPhone.