Text Extractor utility
Text Extractor enables you to copy text from anywhere on your screen, including inside images or videos. This code is based on Joe Finney's Text Grab.
How to activate
With the activation shortcut (default: ⊞ Win+Shift+T), you'll see an overlay on the screen. Click and hold your primary mouse button and drag to activate your capture. The text will be saved to your clipboard.
How to deactivate
Capture mode is closed immediately after text in the selected region is recognized and copied to the clipboard. Close capture mode with Esc at any moment.
Adjust while trying to capture
By holding Shift, you change from adjusting the capture region's size to moving the capture region. When you release Shift, you'll be able to resize again.
Important
- The produced text may not be perfect, so you have to do a quick proof read of the output.
- This tool uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to read text on the screen.
- The default language used will be based on your Windows system language > Keyboard settings. OCR language packs are available for installation.
Settings
From the Settings menu, the following options can be configured:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Activation shortcut | The customizable keyboard command to turn on or off this module. |
| Preferred language | The language used for OCR. |
Supported languages
Text Extractor can only recognize languages that have the OCR language pack installed.
The list can be obtained via PowerShell by running the following commands:
# Please use Windows PowerShell, not PowerShell 7 as these aren't .NET Core libraries
[Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine, Windows.Foundation, ContentType = WindowsRuntime]
[Windows.Media.Ocr.OcrEngine]::AvailableRecognizerLanguages
How to query for OCR language packs
To return the list of all supported language packs, open PowerShell as an Administrator (right-click, then select "Run as Administrator") and enter the following command:
Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object { $_.Name -Like 'Language.OCR*' }
An example output:
Name : Language.OCR~~~el-GR~0.0.1.0
State : NotPresent
Name : Language.OCR~~~en-GB~0.0.1.0
State : NotPresent
Name : Language.OCR~~~en-US~0.0.1.0
State : Installed
Name : Language.OCR~~~es-ES~0.0.1.0
State : NotPresent
Name : Language.OCR~~~es-MX~0.0.1.0
State : NotPresent
The language and location is abbreviated, so "en-US" would be "English-United States" and "en-GB" would be "English-Great Britain". If a language is not available in the output, then it's not supported by OCR. State: NotPresent languages must be installed first.
How to install an OCR language pack
The following commands install the OCR pack for "en-US":
$Capability = Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object { $_.Name -Like 'Language.OCR*en-US*' }
$Capability | Add-WindowsCapability -Online
How to remove an OCR language pack
The following commands remove the OCR pack for "en-US":
$Capability = Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object { $_.Name -Like 'Language.OCR*en-US*' }
$Capability | Remove-WindowsCapability -Online
Troubleshooting
This section will list possible errors and solutions.
"No Possible OCR languages are installed"
This message is shown when there are no available languages for recognition.
If an OCR pack is supported and installed, but still is not available and your system drive X: is different than "C:", then copy X:/Windows/OCR folder to C:/Windows/OCR to fix the issue.
Install PowerToys
This utility is part of the Microsoft PowerToys utilities for power users. It provides a set of useful utilities to tune and streamline your Windows experience for greater productivity. To install PowerToys, see Installing PowerToys.
