To spell check a scan or an image, open the file in the Spell Checker the same way you open any document. Text recognition (OCR) reads the text in the picture, and the app then checks that text for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.
A text does not always come as a Word file. It may be a printed letter you scanned, a photo of a book page or a slide, or a PDF from a scanner, which holds pictures of the pages instead of text. This guide shows how to check such a file, step by step.
Which files work
The Spell Checker reads photos and scans of pages in these image formats:
- JPG
- PNG
- TIFF
- WebP
- BMP
- GIF
It also reads scanned PDFs. In a PDF, a page that has a text layer is checked directly, and a page without one, such as a scanned page, is read with text recognition. So a PDF that mixes typed pages and scanned pages works too.
The Spell Checker is free to use and needs no account.
The short version in 7 steps
- Open the Spell Checker.
- Open your image or scanned PDF from your computer, from a link, or from cloud storage.
- Choose the language of the text and its variant, or let the app detect it.
- Turn on Picky mode if you also want style suggestions.
- Press Check spelling.
- Go through the underlined issues: pick a fix for each one, or ignore it.
- Copy the corrected text, or download it as a document.
Open the image or the scan
On the Spell Checker page, open a document instead of typing into the text box. The file can come from your computer, from a link (choose Paste URL), or from cloud storage. A photo from your phone works once it is on your computer or in your cloud storage.
A scanned document can have up to 100 pages. It is checked page by page: page 1 is checked and shows its suggestions before page 2, so you can start correcting the first pages while the next ones are still being read.
Choose the language
Pick the language your text is written in, and its variant. English comes as American, British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, or South African English, and there are more than 30 languages in all.
You can also let the app detect the language, but detected English is checked as American English. If the scanned letter is in British English, choose British English yourself, or spellings such as colour and realise are checked against the wrong variant. British or American English? explains how to keep one variant throughout.
Check and correct the text
Press Check spelling. Each issue is underlined in the recognized text and listed beside it, by kind: Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation, and Style if you turned on Picky mode. Each kind is also a filter, so you can work through one kind at a time.
Click an underline or a card to see the explanation, and pick a fix. If a suggestion is wrong for your text, ignore it. For a name or a term that keeps being flagged, choose Add to dictionary, and it is not flagged again. The word is kept in this browser only.
You can also edit the text in the result yourself. After larger changes, press Check again to check the new version.
Tell a reading error from a typo
With an image, keep one more thing in mind: text recognition reads a picture, and it does not always read it right. A smudge, a fold, or a curved line near the spine of a book can turn a correct word into a wrong one. Typical misreadings are "rn" read as "m", a lowercase "l" read as the digit "1", and the letter "O" read as the digit "0".
So when a flagged word looks odd, compare it with the original. If the word on the page is right, the mistake is in the reading, not in the text: correct it in the result so that it matches the page. If the word on the page is wrong too, you have found a real typo.
Get a clean scan or photo
Text recognition works best on a clear picture. A few habits help:
- Light the page evenly, without shadows or glare.
- Hold the camera straight above the page, so that the lines are not slanted.
- Keep the whole text in focus and inside the frame.
- Flatten the page, and open a book wide so that the lines near the spine do not curve.
- For long documents, use a scanner rather than a camera when you can.
A clean picture means fewer reading errors, and so fewer false alarms in the check.
Copy or download the result
Press Copy text to take the corrected text to your email or your editor. Or choose Download and pick a format: PDF, DOCX, ODT, RTF, TXT, HTML, or Markdown. Only a Word or OpenDocument file keeps its formatting when you download it in its own format; a photo or a scan comes back as a new file in the format you pick. To start over with another image, press Check another text.
When to use the AI Spell Checker
The Spell Checker works with dictionaries and grammar rules. That makes it fast and predictable, but rules find it hard to spot a real word in the wrong place, such as form where you meant from, or a misreading that happens to form a real word.
The AI Spell Checker has an AI model read whole sentences, so it also catches mistakes like these. It is used the same way, but it costs more to run, so its free use is limited. Spell checker or AI spell checker compares the two, and how to use the online spell checker walks through every step in more detail.