How to Convert a GIF to a TXT File

OCR services let you manipulate text within a .gif file.

A .gif file is a static image that may contain a photograph, clip art or even a page of text. However, text contained within a .gif image cannot be changed, highlighted or copied, which can be very limiting in some situations. Converting a .gif file to an easy-to-edit .txt file allows anyone to copy and/or edit the original text on any operating system. Many free OCR (optical character recognition) web services can automatically identify the shapes of words within .gif images and insert those words into a .txt file with little or no loss of quality.

Instructions

Free OCR

1. Visit Free OCR (see Resources section).

2. Click "Choose File."

3. Double-click the .gif file you wish to convert.

4. Choose your language from the drop-down menu. The default language is English.

5. Fill in the CAPTCHA box.

6. Click "Send File."

7. Highlight the text that was extracted from your .gif image, which now appears in a textbox on the website. Right-click on the highlighted text and choose "Copy."

8. Launch your preferred text editor. On Windows, this is usually Notepad; on Mac OS X, try Text Editor.

9. Right-click in a blank text document and choose "Paste." Save this file as a .txt.

Online OCR

1. Visit the free Online OCR website (see Resources section).

2. Click "Choose File" and double-click the .gif file you are trying to convert.

3. Enter the displayed CAPTCHA code and click "Send File."

4. Click the "TXT" icon. Your .txt version will automatically download to your computer.

Online OCR Service

1. Visit the free Online OCR Service website (see Resources section).

2. Click "Choose File" and double-click your .gif file.

3. Click "Upload."

4. Click "Recognize." The text from your .gif image should appear in a box.

5. Highlight the text in the box and copy it. (Press "Ctrl" + "C" in Windows or "Cmd" + "C" on a Mac.)

6. Open a blank document in your favorite text editing program, such as Notepad (Windows) or Text Editor (Mac).

7. Paste the text into this blank document. (Press "Ctrl" + "V" in Windows or "Cmd" + "V" on a Mac.)

8. Save the file as a .txt.

Tips & Warnings

• Almost any image file type, including JPG, BMP and TIFF files, can be converted to TXT files using an OCR service or software.

• GIF files can be converted into other types of text documents using OCR, including RTF and DOC.

• The quality of the original .gif file affects the quality of the resulting .txt file. Since OCR works by identifying shapes and translating them into alphanumeric characters, a grainy, low-resolution image can be harder to work with.

References

• Think Digit: GIF to txt Converters

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Free OCR: Welcome to Free OCR
• New OCR: Convert JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and PDF to Text
• Online OCR: Online OCR Service