How to get Korean text out of an image
- Pick the image. A photo of a page, a screenshot of a chat or a website, or page 1 of a scanned PDF, as JPG, PNG, WEBP or HEIC, up to 5 MB.
- Press Get the text. Korean text recognition runs on the whole page, with no account and no email.
- Copy or download. Copy the Hangul into a dictionary, a translator or a document, or save it as a .txt file or a Word file.
What Korean OCR reads
Each Hangul block comes back as one syllable character, not as loose letters, so a copied word works in Naver Dictionary, Papago or a search box. Spaces between words stay where they are printed.
- Documents
- Family relation certificates, transcripts, contracts, bank letters and forms
- Screens
- Screenshots of KakaoTalk chats, webtoon captions, websites and subtitles
- Study material
- Textbook pages, worksheets and vocabulary lists
- Hanja
- Chinese characters inside a Korean text come back as characters
- Tables
- Come back as real tables in the Word file
- Numbers and dates
- Stay exactly as printed, such as 2026년 11월 5일
Free Korean OCR tools compared
| Option | Where it works | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Live Text on iPhone and iPad | Korean is in Apple's Live Text language list[1]. Needs an iPhone XS or later with iOS 15 or later[2] | Text you select and copy on the phone |
| Google Drive, Open with Google Docs | PDF or JPEG, PNG or GIF photos of 2 MB or smaller. Korean is a supported language[3] | A Google Doc. Tables and columns are not likely to be detected[3] |
| Google Translate, Images tab | An image uploaded in the browser[4] | The Korean translated into another language[4] |
| LoreAI Korean OCR | Any browser, JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC or a one-page PDF up to 5 MB, 1 free run a day with no account, 10 with a free one | The whole page in Hangul, as text, .txt or Word with tables |
Live Text is handy for a sign or a menu on your phone. For a full page on a computer, or a document with a table, upload it above.
From Korean to an English Word file
The free tool gives you the Korean as written. For English, upload the document to the LoreAI app. It detects Korean on its own, translates into English or any of 105 languages and returns an editable Word file with headings, lists and tables in the original order. Korean names are written in Latin letters, and dates and numbers stay as printed.
Your first document is free, up to 3 pages and 3 MB. For photos, see Korean to English image translator. LoreAI is not a certified translation service. When an authority needs a certified translation, a translator reviews the Word draft and signs the certificate.
Getting a clean photo of Korean text
- Shoot straight down so the rows of blocks stay level.
- Get close enough that the strokes inside each block are sharp. Google asks for text at least 10 pixels high for its own converter[3].
- Crop a screenshot to the part you need, without the phone's status bar.
- Turn the image upright before you upload it.
Questions people ask
Is there a free Korean OCR?
Yes, the one on this page, free with no account for 1 run a day, and 10 runs a day with a free account.
Can I copy Korean text from a picture on my iPhone?
Can I copy Korean text from a screenshot?
Yes. Upload the screenshot as PNG or JPG and the Hangul comes back as text you can paste anywhere.
Can it translate the Korean to English?
The free tool returns Korean text. The LoreAI app translates the whole document into an English Word file.
Sources
- Apple: iOS and iPadOS Feature Availability, accessed November 5, 2026
- Apple Support: Use Live Text to get information from photos, videos, and images, accessed November 5, 2026
- Google Drive Help: Convert PDF and photo files to text, accessed November 5, 2026
- Google Translate Help: Translate images, accessed November 5, 2026
By Matt Mountain ·