To copy text from a photo on Android, open the picture in Google Photos, tap Google Lens, select the words and copy them. Paste into Google Sheets or Excel, where each line usually lands in one cell. Then split each line into date, description and amount columns with a few formulas, and check that the numbers sum.
Which Android tools copy text from a photo?
Google Lens is the main Android tool that copies text from a photo, and it is reachable from Google Photos, the Google app and many phone cameras. Lens recognises the words in a picture and lets you select and copy them like ordinary text. Some phone makers add their own text tool to the camera or gallery as well.
Where Lens shows up
- Google Photos. Open a saved photo and Lens is in the More menu at the top of the screen.
- The Google app. Lens can also be opened from the Google app, where you can take a new picture or pick one from the gallery.
- The camera app. Some phone cameras show a text button of their own when they see printed words.
Which one you use matters less than the photo. A sharp, straight picture of a printed table will copy well from any of them. A dim, angled one will copy badly from all of them.
What copying gives you
Lens copies plain text. It does not know what a column is. A table comes out as lines of words separated by spaces, which is why the later sections of this guide are about putting the columns back.
Copying photo text with Lens in Google Photos on Android
Copying photo text with Lens in Google Photos takes four taps once the picture is saved. Google's help page on getting info about your photos with Lens says to open the photo, tap More at the top, select Google Lens, and then tap and select the words you want to copy.
The steps
- Open Google Photos and tap the picture of the table.
- Tap More at the top of the screen, then Google Lens.
- Wait for Lens to outline the text it found.
- Tap the text, then drag the selection handles to cover the rows you need.
- Tap the copy option. The selection is now on the clipboard.
Select less, not more
Select only the rows of the table, not the heading above it or the notes below. Every extra line becomes a row you have to delete later. If the table is long, copy it in two or three parts and paste each part under the last, rather than trying to drag one selection across the whole picture.
Check the reading order
On a table, Lens may read across each row or down each column, depending on the spacing. Paste a few lines into a note first and look. If you see all the dates first, then all the descriptions, Lens read the columns one at a time. In that case, copy one column at a time and paste each into its own spreadsheet column.
Pasting copied photo text into an Android spreadsheet
Pasting copied photo text into an Android spreadsheet usually puts each line of the table into one cell in column A. Google Sheets and Excel on a phone both treat the pasted text as lines, not as a grid. That is expected. The text is all there; it just needs splitting.
How to paste
Open a new sheet. Tap cell A2, leaving row 1 free for headings, then touch and hold and choose Paste. Each line from the photo should fill one cell, moving down the column. If a whole paragraph lands in one cell, the copied text had no line breaks; copy smaller pieces and paste them one by one.
Clean the pasted lines first
Before splitting, scroll down column A and delete:
- heading lines that came along with the table,
- page numbers or footer text,
- lines that are only a stray symbol or a single letter.
Removing these first keeps the formulas from returning errors on rows that were never data.
How do you split pasted photo text into spreadsheet columns?
You split pasted photo text into spreadsheet columns with formulas that pull out each piece by its position or pattern. A date usually starts the line and an amount ends it, so you take the first characters for the date, the last number for the amount, and everything in between as the description.
Why a plain split falls short
Google's page on the SPLIT function in Google Sheets explains that SPLIT divides text around a delimiter and puts each piece in its own cell. Splitting on a space works for a line with no spaces inside its fields. A description like "CORNER GROCERY" has a space in it, though, so SPLIT breaks it into two cells and pushes the amount into a different column on every row.
A worked example
These five lines are an example of text copied from a photo of a printed receipt list. They are made up for illustration and pasted into A2:A6.
03/14 CORNER GROCERY 42.15
03/14 BUS PASS 2.50
03/15 HARDWARE STORE 118.09
03/16 PHARMACY 9.99
03/18 FURNITURE OUTLET 1,204.50
Put these formulas in row 2 and fill them down:
B2 =LEFT(A2,5)
D2 =VALUE(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,"[0-9,]+\.[0-9]{2}$"))
C2 =TRIM(MID(A2,7,LEN(A2)-6-LEN(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,"[0-9,]+\.[0-9]{2}$"))))
Column B takes the first five characters, the date. Column D finds the amount at the end of the line and turns it into a number. Column C takes everything between the date and the amount and trims the spaces.
The result looks like this:
| Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 03/14 | CORNER GROCERY | 42.15 |
| 03/14 | BUS PASS | 2.50 |
| 03/15 | HARDWARE STORE | 118.09 |
| 03/16 | PHARMACY | 9.99 |
| 03/18 | FURNITURE OUTLET | 1204.50 |
Once the columns look right, copy B to D and paste them back as values, so you can delete column A without breaking anything.
When a line does not fit the pattern
A row that shows an error in column D has no amount the pattern can find. The usual reasons are a misread decimal point, a currency sign stuck to the number, or an amount that wrapped onto the next line. Fix that line in column A by hand and the formulas recalculate.
Do numbers copied from a photo add up on Android?
Numbers copied from a photo often refuse to add up on Android, because they arrive as text rather than as numbers. A copied "42.15" can look right and still be ignored by SUM. A thousands comma, a stray space or a letter O read in place of a zero will all keep a value as text.
How to check
Total the amount column with SUM and compare it with the total printed on the paper. Then count the rows with COUNT on the amount column and COUNTA on the description column. If COUNT is lower, some amounts are still text.
How to fix
Wrapping the amount in VALUE, as the example does, converts most of them. For the rest, look for:
- a capital O or lower-case l inside the number,
- a space between digits,
- a minus sign printed after the number instead of before it.
The guide to fixing numbers stored as text in an editable spreadsheet covers the same problem as it shows up after a PDF conversion, with more repair methods.
When copying text from a photo on Android is the wrong method
Copying text from a photo on Android is the wrong method when the table is long, when it repeats across many pages, or when the figures matter enough that one misread digit causes trouble. Copy and paste is fine for a dozen lines. Beyond that, the time spent selecting, pasting and splitting adds up quickly.
Signs to stop
- The table runs past one photo and you are stitching parts together.
- Lens keeps reading the columns in the wrong order.
- The totals do not match after two rounds of fixes.
- The document is a bank statement you could download as a PDF.
What to do instead
For a bank statement, ask for or download the PDF from the bank. A downloaded statement carries the actual characters, so there is nothing to recognise and nothing to split by hand. For other long tables, an app built to turn images into spreadsheets saves the splitting step.
FastBankConvert is designed for statement PDFs: it puts dates, descriptions, amounts and balances in their own columns and flags a statement whose balances do not add up before you download it. It has not launched yet, and the FastBankConvert home page explains how to be told when it does.
Finishing the photo text sheet on a Chromebook or another computer
Finishing the photo text sheet is easier on a bigger screen. If you built it in Google Sheets, it is already saved to Google Drive, and the same file opens on a Chromebook or any computer signed in to the same account. An Excel file needs to be moved or saved to a cloud folder first.
On a Chromebook
A Chromebook opens Sheets files in the browser. For an XLSX file, the guide to opening Excel files on a Chromebook explains the choice between Sheets, Excel on the web and the Files app.
On a Mac with an iPhone in the house
Android phones do not use AirDrop, so sending a file from Android to a Mac usually means a cloud folder, mail or a cable. If someone else in the household photographs the same paper with an iPhone, the guide to sending a bank statement to a Mac with AirDrop covers that route.
Keep the photo until the sheet is checked
Leave the original photo in Google Photos until the totals in the sheet match the paper. It is your reference if a number looks odd later. Once the sheet is checked and saved, delete the photo if the table held anything private.