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Free steps to turn a picture into a Word document that you can edit
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- Using OnlineOCR
- Using a PDF on Windows
- Using a PDF on Mac
- Tips
- Warnings
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Don’t you wish you could open a JPEG image in Microsoft Word and make changes to the text? While that might seem impossible, we’ve actually found two easy ways to get the job done—one is to scan for text using an online OCR tool, and the other is to simply «print» the JPEG to a PDF and then convert it to a Word document that you can edit. This wikiHow article teaches you how to easily convert a JPEG into an editable Word document.
Things You Should Know
- Use an online service, like OnlineOCR, to convert your images into editable Word documents. Just go to the website and select your JPEG to convert to PDF.
- For Mac or Windows computers, use Preview or Photos to change your JPEG to PDF.
- Once the JPEG is a PDF, you can open it in Word to edit the text!
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Open OnlineOCR. Go to https://www.onlineocr.net/ in your computer’s web browser. This website will allow you to convert a few different file types (JPEG included) into a Word document.
- You can also use other online services if you don’t want to use OnlineOCR. Try Small PDF or a similar PDF converter.
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Click Select file…. It’s in the lower-left side of the webpage. Doing so opens a File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) window in which you can select your JPEG file.
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Select your JPEG file. Go to the folder in which your JPEG is stored, then click once the JPEG file you want to convert.
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Click Open. It’s in the bottom-right corner of the window. Doing so uploads the JPEG file to the OnlineOCR website.
- On a Mac, you may click Choose here.
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Select a language. If you want to use a language other than the one listed in the middle text box, click the current language and then click the language you want to use.
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Make sure you’re converting to a Word document. If the third text box doesn’t have «Microsoft Word (docx)» written in it, click the text box and then click Microsoft Word (docx) in the drop-down menu.
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Click CONVERT. It’s on the far-right side of the page. Doing so prompts OnlineOCR to begin converting your JPEG file into a Word document.
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Click Download Output File. This link is below the Select file… button. Your converted Word document will download onto your computer.
- Depending on your browser’s settings, you may need to select a save location or confirm the download before the file will download.
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Open your new Word document. Double-click the converted Word document to do so.
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Click Enable Editing. It’s in a yellow bar at the top of the Word document. Doing so will make the Word document editable.
- This is necessary because, since you downloaded the Word document from the Internet, Word views it as potentially dangerous.
- Remember to save any changes you make by pressing Ctrl+S (Windows) or ⌘ Command+S (Mac).
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Open the JPEG file you want to convert. Double-click the JPEG file to do so. This will open the JPEG file in the Photos app.
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Click the «Print»
icon. It’s the printer-shaped icon in the top-right corner of the window. Doing so opens the Print window.
- Don’t panic if you don’t have a printer attached to your computer—you won’t actually be printing anything.
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Click the «Printer» drop-down box. This is at the top of the Print window. A drop-down menu will appear.
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Click Microsoft Print to PDF. It’s in the drop-down menu.
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Click Print. This is at the bottom of the window. A pop-up window will appear.
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Enter a name. In the «Name» text field, type in the name you want to use for your converted document.
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Select a save location. Click a folder name (e.g., Desktop) on the left side of the window.
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Click Save. It’s at the bottom of the window. Doing so saves a PDF version of your JPEG file in your selected folder.
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Go to the PDF’s location. You’ll find it in the folder you selected before saving the PDF.
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Right-click the PDF. Doing so prompts a drop-down menu.
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Select Open with. This is in the drop-down menu. A pop-out menu will appear.
- If you don’t see Open with in the drop-down menu, click anywhere to close the drop-down menu, then click once the PDF to select it before you right-click it again.
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Click Word. It’s in the pop-out menu. Microsoft Word will open.
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Click OK when prompted. Word will begin attempting to convert the PDF into a Word document.
- This may take a few minutes.
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Review your Word document. The PDF-to-Word conversion process isn’t perfect, so you may need to clean up some of the text or remove images that aren’t properly positioned.[1]
- If your document isn’t entirely editable or a large group of the document’s text is inaccurate, you might want to use Online OCR instead.
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Select your JPEG file. Go to the folder location of the JPEG file that you want to convert, then click once the file to select it.
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Click File. It’s a menu item at the top of the screen. A drop-down menu will appear.
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Select Open With. This is in the File drop-down menu. Selecting it prompts a pop-out menu to appear.
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Click Preview. It’s in the pop-out menu. Doing so opens the JPEG file in Preview.
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Click File again. The drop-down menu will reappear.
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Click Export as PDF…. This is in the drop-down menu. Clicking it prompts a new window to appear.[2]
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Select a save location. Click the «Where» drop-down box, then click the name of the folder in which you want to save your converted PDF.
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Click Save. It’s at the bottom of the window.
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Select your new PDF. Go to the folder in which you saved the PDF version of your JPEG file, then click the PDF to select it.
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Click File, then select Open With. The Open With pop-out menu will open.
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Click Microsoft Word. This should be in the pop-out menu. Doing so will open Microsoft Word.
- If you don’t see Word here, you can still open the PDF by opening Word, clicking File, clicking Open, and selecting the PDF in the Finder window that appears.
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Click OK when prompted. Word will begin attempting to convert the PDF into a Word document.
- This may take a few minutes.
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Review your Word document. The PDF-to-Word conversion process isn’t perfect, so you may need to clean up some of the text or remove images that aren’t properly positioned.[3]
- If your document isn’t entirely editable or a large group of the document’s text is inaccurate, you might want to use Online OCR instead.
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The higher the quality of the JPEG file, the better results you’ll have when converting it to a Word document.
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OCR technology isn’t perfect, so you may need to make some adjustments to your Word document before it resembles accurately the JPEG file’s contents.
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Table of Contents:
- Image to Text Converter
- How to extract text from images?
- Features offered by Image to Text
- Why Prepostseo Image to Text Converter?
- Use Picture to Text converter – Why it is important?
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Image to Text Converter
Image to Text is a free online tool that lets you copy text from images accurately. It features the latest optical character recognition (OCR) technology to accurately convert photos into text.
It can extract text from any image format such as:
- PNG
- JPG
- BMP
- GIF
- JPEG
- TIFF
Jpg to text tool can extract text from images, official documents, screenshots of web pages, or any image with a few characters.
To convert an image to text using the above tool, follow the steps below:
- Upload the image using the Upload Picture button. If you want to crop the image, you can use our crop image
- Or paste the URL of the image.
- Click the Submit button to get a text from uploaded images.
- Hooray! You got it right.
You will get the text in the container where you can copy the text to the clipboard, download the text as a .txt file, or save it as a document. - If you want to convert an image that includes text from other languages, you can choose another language from the side panel.
You can also convert pdf images to text online using this photo to text converter.
Features offered by Image to Text
The Following key features of our picture to text converter make it a competitive and perfect tool to copy text from images.
Let’s explore some of the classic features of this image to text app.
1. Extract text from low-resolution images
Students often take photos of book pages and notes for exams. These pictures are usually blurred due to poor camera quality.
Our online text extractor can take out text from low-resolution and blurry images as well with high accuracy.
2. Identify math equations
You may have some pictures of algebraic or geometric formulas if you are a math geek. The good news is, this picture to text converter not only gets simple text for you but also extracts complex mathematical equations like a pro.
3. Free of cost
You can upload as many scanned books, notes, images, and photos as you want.
Our free pic to text converter extracts correct text each time without asking you to sign up or paid subscription.
4. Trustworthy and secure
You are safe and secure with us. We always aim and promise to keep your data safe and secure. We adhere to our policy that we will neither pass your data to any third party nor it will be stored in our database.
5. Multiple language support
This online OCR tool provides multilingual support. It can translate images into text in more than 30 languages.
It supports Multiple languages including English, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Portuguese, Czech, Swedish, Polish, Netherlands, French, Indonesian, Romania, Thai, Italian, Georgian, Dansk, Korean, Filipino, Turkish, and Arabic.
6. Extract text via URL
Apart from uploading, a picture can be converted to text by inserting the URL of the pic into the URL box.
This feature is very useful when you browse the Internet and come across an image that contains the text.
7. Download the text file
Data can be lost or misplaced if not saved appropriately. You can directly download converted text as a file instead of copying the text.
This feature saves time and important data in the local storage of your device.
8. Copy to the clipboard
You can copy the converted text to the clipboard and paste it into the desired file or directory.
9. Convert the image to a word file
After converting a photo to text, you can save the output directly to a Microsoft Word file by using Save as Document feature.
This way, you can convert images to text in Microsoft Word and can use it for further purposes.
10. Accessible from any device
This jpeg to text converter can be used on a mobile device and performs the text conversion perfectly. You can access this tool from any device by using the web browser.
Why Prepostseo Image to Text Converter?
Here are the best reasons that make our tool unique:
💡 Formats | JPG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, and more |
🎯 Result | Highly accurate |
💲 Price | Fremium |
🌐 Languages | 20+ Languages supported |
✔️ Save | Time and Money |
🥰 Improves | Work Efficiency and Productivity |
- Convert images, scanned documents, and photos to editable text
- No registration or personal data required
- No installation required
- 100% free of charge
- Exact image to text conversion
- Save your time and money
- Save you from retyping
Use Picture to Text converter – Why it is important?
There are millions of reasons to use text extractor tools, some of which are:
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Save time & efforts
Productivity needs more time and with this picture to text converter, you can save your precious time by converting scanned images into editable text, saving time and reducing errors from manual typing.
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Boost your business
You can extract text from all your business documents and store it in one place. This data can be used to create analysis and audit reports.
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Extract content from social media
You may encounter interesting images on your social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. These media files can be converted to text and you can use this text wherever you need.
Whenever you wish to send any of that to your friends in text form, you can simply generate the text from social media images using this OCR tool.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I extract text from JPEG?
You can use our Jpg to word converter to extract text from a JPEG, OR follow the steps below:
- Go to the Prepostseo image to text tool.
- Upload a JPEG image and hit Submit.
- Download or copy the text using the relevant buttons.
Tip: you can also use imagetotext.info to extract text from image.
How do I convert handwritten notes to text?
Follow the steps below to convert handwritten notes to text:
- Take a picture of the note using a camera.
- Go to the Prepostseo image to text tool
- Upload the image and click Submit.
- Copy the text or download the file into your device.
Are you looking for a simple way you can extract and copy text on an image file?
Just like scanned pdfs, you cannot just select and copy the text on an image.
However, there are lots of tricks and free tools that will allow you to extract text from any image.
In this tutorial, I am going to show you 4 amazing tricks you can use to handle this task.
Without any further ado, let’s see the various options and how they word.
How to extract or copy text from a picture
Before I show you the way, I’ll like you to know that there is no image to text converter that can handle blurry and dark pictures. So, if you want a clean extract, ensure that your images are not blurry or dark. Also, make sure that the pictures are not flipped upside down. This way, you’ll be able to extract accurate text from your image.
I am sure you already have your image ready.
Below is the image I am going to use throughout this tutorial:
Discussed below are therefore the 4 available methods you can use to copy text from any image.
#1: Copy Text from Image Using OneNote
One of the easiest ways you can copy text from any image is to use the Microsoft OneNote app.
It has a very amazing feature that allows you to simply right click on the image and copies any text from that image.
If you have Microsoft Office, then you should have OneNote included in the package.
To check whether your computer has OneNote, perform a quick search on your Windows PC for this keyword “One Note”.
If you don’t have OneNote on your PC, I think now is the time to go get it installed. Or just explore the other options.
Once you confirm that you have OneNote on your PC, obey the instructions below on how to use this app to copy text from your image file.
- Open OneNote.
- Using your Microsoft Account, sign in to the app.
If you are opening this app for the first time, you may be asked to sign in with your Microsoft Account. If you are already logged in to the other office apps, you may not see this sign-in window.
And once you sign in, you will see a screenshot like the one below:
- Select the Add Page button located on right pane at the top right section.
This will add a new page to your notes.
- Click to place the insertion pointer inside the body section of the new page.
- On the Ribbon, go to Insert > Images > Picture.
Navigate to the location of your picture and insert it into your One Note document.
The picture should be inserted as seen on the screenshot below:
- Right click on the image you just inserted and select Copy Text from Picture.
The text on the picture will be copied.
To verify this, simply add a new page and paste it there. Or open upyour notepad and press Ctrl+V to paste.
The screenshot below shows the text I copied on my image.
At this point, you can switch over to your favorite text editor (like Word or NotePad) and paste the text there.
You can now use this method to copy text from as many images as you like.
OneNote copy text from picture not available
In some cases, the Copy Text from Picture may not be available when you right click. If that is you, try the following fixes:
- Fix #1: For Mac users, you should Ctrl+click on the picture (or right-click with your mouse).
- Fix #2: Confirm that you are not using Office 365 account. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office 365 does not support yet the OCR technology that detects and copy text from images. To check whether you are using Office 365 or not, click on the File tab and in the New dashboard, check if you see OneDrive or Office 365|OneDrive.
- Fix #3: If you are not using Office 365 account, click somewhere on the page that contains the image and edit something. The changes on the page will force the copy to text feature to process. This may take a while, say 10 minutes or even more.
- Fix #4: If this doesn’t work either, right-click on the image and use the Save As… button to save the image onto your computer. Then add a new page and using Insert>Images>Picture on the ribbon, insert the image and try again.
I hope that one of these solutions will fix your “OneNote copy text from picture not available” problem.
Also, you can try the other methods discussed below.
#2: copy text from image online
This option is the fastest way to extract text from images.
It involved using an online tool that is designed purposefully for this function. This tells you how effective that can be.
There are several online converters that can extract the text from any image, provided there are writings on that image.
The best tool out there is onlineocr.net. Obey the following instructions on how to use this tool.
- Go to Online onlineocr.net with your favorite web browser.
- Use the Select file… button to select the picture that has the text you want to copy or extract.
- Select the language and out format and then click on the Convert button. As at the time of this writing, this tool supports three output formats which are Microsoft Word, Excel and Plain text format.
After a while you should get your output file ready plus the extracted text in a text box. You now select and copy the text or just download the output file.
This is how you may use this online image to text converter to extract text from any picture.
#3: Extract Text from Picture Using Word
Another simple way to extract text from an image without using any specialized software is to go with Microsoft Word. This option, when done right, can be the best way for you.
It’s very simple at the same time complicated depending on the quality of your image.
Let’s see.
First, open Word and insert the picture from which you want to copy the text and save the document as PDF. Inside Microsoft Word, press Ctrl+O and open the pdf file you saved with the image. Word will show you a messaging saying that your pdf will convert to an editable format, click OK to accept. Then select and copy your text.
Obey the following steps if you want a detailed guide on this one.
- Open Microsoft Word and insert the picture from which you want to extract the text.
To insert a picture in Word, On the insert tap click Pictures in the Illustrations group. A file explorer will show up. Use this file explorer to locate and insert the image with the text.
Below is a screenshot of the picture I inserted.
- Edit the picture within your Word document.
This step is not compulsory. However, it is necessary especially if your image is not clear. It’s just to make sure the exact words are copied from the image. If you believe that your picture is clear enough you can skip this step.
If you have a not so clear picture, obey the following tips to edit and brighten it:
Edit 1:
Crop out all unimportant edges of the picture, especially if it contains sharp edges or if the edges are not part of the paper.
To crop a picture in Word, first click to select the picture. The Picture Tools Design tab will appear on the ribbon, go to this tab in the Size group and click the Crop icon.
Edit 2:
Increase the picture brightness if the picture is dark.
To increase the brightness of a picture, click on it and the Picture Tools Design tab will appear. Go to this tab and select Corrections in the Adjust group and play with the brightness levels. Select the brightness setting that will brighten the background behind the picture.
Very Important: don’t adjust the brightness to a level that will make the text on the picture invisible. Just do your best and leave the rest.
Edit 3:
Enlarge the picture and spread it to fit the page. Ignore this step if the text becomes over blurry with this adjustment. However, if enlarging the picture doesn’t cause the text to be too blurry, proceed to make the image fill the entire page including the margins.
To spread a picture in Word, click on it and using the edge controls, drag and spread the picture to fill the page. If the picture misbehaves when you try to spread it, right-click on it and select Wrap Text > In Front of Text.
Screenshot below shows my final adjusted image inside Word.
After adjusting the image, proceed to the next step.
- Save the document as pdf after you’ve inserted and adjusted the picture.
To save a Word document as a PDF file, go to File>Save As and select the folder where you want to save it. The Save As window will appear, give the file a name and select PDF in the Save as Type. Alternatively, Go to File>Export and select Create PDF/XPS to convert the Word file to a pdf.
- After saving the document as PDF, open the same PDF in a new Word document.
To do so, go to your Word document, press Ctrl+O to switch to the open document dashboard. Alternatively, go to File>Open then open the folder that contains the PDF you just converted. If you can’t see the folder, use the browse file explorer. Then locate and open the new PDF file.
Another way to open the pdf file in Word is to right-click on the file and go to Open With > Word.
Word will prompt you with this information that says that your PDF will be converted to an editable Word document. Click on the OK button of this dialog to begin the conversion process.
In just some few seconds, the document will be converted to an editable Microsoft Word document.
The screenshot below shows the result I got. It’s perfectly the same text on the image with the same formatting and paragraph settings.
#4: Using Google Docs and Adobe Acrobat Pro
You can also copy text from any image with Google Docs or Adobe Acrobat Pro.
This uses the same technique we used with Microsoft Word.
As you may already know, scanned pdfs are really images that’s why they can’t be edited. So, if you insert an image with text into Word and save it as a pdf, it will be the same as a scanned pdf.
That’s the trick here. Just convert the image to pdf then to editable Word as explained below.
To extract text from an image using Adobe Acrobat DC Pro, first of all, open Word and insert the image file. Then save the Word document as a pdf. Now open the converted pdf with Adobe Acrobat Pro and use its Export PDF tool to convert it back into Word.
Related Link: How to copy text from scanned pdf.
If you also want to use Google Docs, just convert the image to a pdf file and open it in Google Docs, it’ll automatically convert the file to text.
Which was your favorite method.
Let me know in the comments section below.
There are a few cases in which you might want to extract text from an image file. What file format your image is in doesn’t matter here, you can easily convert from JPG, PNG, TIF, WEBP, and more.
Scans: If you scan articles, papers, receipts, invoices, any paperwork, it might be that they are saved as images.
Screenshots: Taking a screenshot of a page usually results in a PNG or JPG image.
Photos: In order to pay attention to a presentation, speech, or conference, it’s oftentimes easier to just snap a quick photo of the slide or presentation and then listen to the speaker again.
To work with the text, search for certain keywords, copy and paste quotes, and saving paperwork digitally, a text document is more practical than an image format.
The Image to text converter enables you to extract text from image with one click.
It scans the image by using the latest OCR technology and extracts every single piece of text written in the image.
How to Convert Image to Text?
To extract the text from the picture by using this online converter, follow the steps below:
- Drag or upload a file from the system.
- Or, paste the URL of the specific image.
- Click the Extract Text button.
The converter will use the latest OCR technology and generates the extracted text report within seconds.
What is OCR technology?
OCR is the “Optical Character Recognition” technology used to convert any image containing handwritten or printed readable text.
Once the file has been processed through the online OCR, the extracted text can be further edited by using word processing software like MS Word.
Why use this picture to text converter?
This Image to text converter is perfect for scanning and extracting the desired readable text from image.
It further provides the following best features to easily get the required text from any image:
No Registration
There is no registration or installation process is required to use this picture to text converter.
It is completely free and extracts text from the images within a fraction of seconds.
Image Uploading
This feature provides an option to upload pictures in PNG, JPEG, BMP, and JPG format. Users can also drag images from their systems without any hurdle.
Extract Text via URL
Extracting readable text from the images via URL allows you to get the desired text from any image online.
Accurate Extracted Text Report
If you upload a picture in the converter as:
It scans the entire picture, extracts the readable text, and generates the accurate text report as:
Copy the Result Data
This feature gives an option to copy text from image in real-time.
Benefits of using Image to Text tool
There are a number of key advantages of this online converter. Some of them are mention below:
- The picture to text converter increases the productivity of the users by extracting text in seconds.
- Businesspersons can use this utility to scans their business documents to create analysis reports without any hurdle.
- People on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter may found some interesting images.
- They can convert these pictures into a readable textual form with one click.
- The photo converter helps users to edit and update the result text in no time.
- It makes documents searchable and helps users to easily search specific text written in the file.