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Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS
1. Click capture text
2. Select an area on screen with text
3. Paste the text anywhere
Are there other solutions out there? Yes, the best one that I've found is Text Sniper, it $8 so I decided to learn SwiftUI and release Text Capture for $0.99. This one uses MacOS builtin Vision API under the hood so it should also improve with new macOS releases. Would love to hear your feedback!
- lucasllinasm 2y agoNeat and quick—what are the next couple of features you'd incorporate?
- auden_pierce 2y agoThanks! Probably more languages, and barcode/QR code detection. I'm currently collecting feedback, would love to hear your suggestions -> https://insigh.to/b/textcapture https://insigh.to/b/textcapture
- scratchyone 2y agoThis looks wonderful! Just a small heads up, you have a meta tag listing @marc_louvion as the creator (assuming this landing page is built on one of his templates?). I figure you may want to update that so it has your info instead. <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@marc_louvion">
- auden_pierce 2y agoThanks!
- scosman 2y agoWhat makes it better than screenshot and Preview? The built in OCR is pretty great on MacOS.
- Aaron2222 2y agoIf it's something you'd have to screenshot to use OCR on (i.e. it doesn't just let you directly select the text), this (and the other options) is a bit faster than having to take a screenshot then select the text from it (you select the region like when taking a screenshot and the text is OCRed and copied to the pasteboard in one go).
- jedbrooke 2y ago> Are there other solutions out there? yes you can just do cmd+shift+4 to take a screen shot, then open the screenshot in the popup that appears and MacOS will automatically OCR it (orc button in the bottom right). This is a built in functionality in MacOS
- jwells89 2y agoWorks for images in Preview and even in Safari too. Super handy.
- evilduck 2y agoWorks in Photos.app for searching for text in your photo albums too. macOS OCR behavior extends to most similar things in iOS too.
- bobnamob 2y agoWhich makes Photos.app a surprisingly good recipe book.
- evilduck 2y agoAlso as a rolodex. I just take pictures of business cards and you can long press to OCR the phone number and dial from that immediately with no need to even create contact entries unless it becomes a repeat relationship, and if you do, you can usually insta-create the contact card in full with just a long press on the image.
- vundercind 2y agoThe moment I realized this was now a table-stakes feature for a GUI OS, for me, was when I’d been reading and copy-pasting from an image for a couple minutes before realizing it wasn’t a PDF.
- frizlab 2y agoYou can even search for text in images in Safari. I was dumbfounded the first time I searched for some text in a page and Safari found it in an image on the page.
- jitl 2y agoThe system does this automatically on macOS and iOS in screenshots and stuff.
- rammer 2y agoAnyone know of good windows alternatives for this?
- seltzered_ 2y agohttps://screenotate.com/ https://screenotate.com/ is one windows example
- crtasm 2y agoPowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/text-extractor https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/text-ext...
- hu3 2y agoWindows 11 native screenshot tool does OCR for me. You can also get it free with PowerToys from Microsoft and press WIN+SHIFT+T.
- wodenokoto 2y ago> Windows 11 native screenshot tool does OCR for me. The win+shift+s command / snip & sketch tool? It doesn't appear to have any OCR option before or after capturing
- mdrzn 2y agoThe screenshot and the OCR are two different commands and keybinds. Check Powertoys.
- hu3 2y agoAfter taking a screenshot with Win+Shift+S, it displays a notification with the preview of the image for me, on the lower right corner of the screen. When I click that preview, it opens the "Snipping Tool": https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots-00246869-1843-655f-f220-97299b865f6b https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-snipping-too... In this tool there's a button that does OCR: https://i.imgur.com/GtYUvSS.png https://i.imgur.com/GtYUvSS.png There's also Power Tools, which is another free option, also from Microsoft. I hope it helps. Let me know if it worked for you or not.
- dmitrygr 2y agoThis is built into the OS itself. I don’t get it. What am I missing? I can select text in any image or screenshot seamlessly and very accurately, for $0.00 up front and $0.00 per month.
- eviks 2y agoNative OS is limited to a few apps, so not seamless?
- dmitrygr 2y agoScreenshots auto-do OCR and you can screenshot anything.
- eviks 2y agoYes, screenshots is one of those apps, but it's not seamless: seamless "auto-do OCR" is selecting an area on the screen and getting text in your clipboard without other side effects. So no extra screenshot files created, no need to navigate another interface to select text in the screenshot
- eevmanu 2y agoAny decent alternative for Linux or Ubuntu-based OS? Thanks.
- danpla 2y agoTry dpScreenOCR: https://danpla.github.io/dpscreenocr/ https://danpla.github.io/dpscreenocr/
- counternotions 2y agoCleanshot has OCR built in as a feature too
- wodenokoto 2y agoIf you have installed Microsofts Power Toys on Windows [1], you can win+shift+T and select any area on screen and windows will OCR it and store it on your clipboard. It's not SOTA AI powered OCR, but works great for copying a link on a streamed tech talk or text from an application / website that tries to make text not-selectable. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
- gumboshoes 2y agoI use EasyDict, which also does translations with multiple services. Open source. https://github.com/tisfeng/Easydict https://github.com/tisfeng/Easydict