screenshot - Quick copy text from image?

07
2014-07
  • Nathan Fig

    Is there a method for quickly selecting an area of a picture / image and copying it into the clipboard as text?

    For example, say someone lacking foresight sends me a screenshot of a console instead of the text file, and I want to copy a snippit into Google. Is there a tool / method for quickly parsing the outlined part of the image? enter image description here (image borrowed via Google images purely for example sake, credit this page)

    This would save me a lot of time from typing or going through the many clicks of uploading to some kind of image parsing program.

    • Answers
  • MoonSire

    Sounds like Capture2Text might do what you want. Its an open source program I found when looking for something similar for work.

    Short instruction (fetched straight from the site)

    1. Press Windows + Q to start the capture.
    2. Now, using your mouse, resize the capture box over the area of the screen that you want to OCR.
    3. A preview of the captured OCR'd text will appear in the top-left corner of the screen.
    4. Press the capture key again or the left mouse button to complete the capture.
    5. The captured screen area will be OCR'd and the textual result will be stored in the clipboard by default.

    • Related Question

    ocr - Image to Text converter
  • Mr-Right

    I need a software which can convert scanned text to editable text. I will prefer freeware?


    • Related Answers
  • 8088

    my favorite:

    TopOCR is designed to be simple and user-friendly for use with your digital camera or smartphone. Now wherever you go, you can quickly and easily acquire documents from business cards, newspapers, books and magazines, without having to carry around a bulky and costly portable scanner.

    of course it also works with images from a scanner.

    TopOCR 3.1 Features

    • Incredible OCR accuracy, upto 99.8% with a 3 MP camera
    • No page limits, and no extra downloads or components needed
    • Handles images with mixed text and graphics
    • Handles skew and uneven lighting
    • Output formats include searchable PDF and HTML
    • Able to read 11 different languages
    • Powerful, easy to use Image Processing
    • Supports Smartphones: See some Smartphone samples
    • Includes built-in Text and Image WYSIWYG Editors
    • Post-processing spell checker for all 11 languages
    • Built-in Text-To-Speech software. How about OCR to MP3?
    • Browser Helper Mode supports creating free audio eBooks

    alt text

    TopOCR is freeware, easy to make portable with Universal Extractor.

  • William Hilsum

    What you are looking for is OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Software, If the scanned file is small, you can use an online tool called Free OCR.

    For an application, I recommend Paperfile's Free OCR. (Same name, different program).