Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

textcapture.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#31

Post by dmitrygr »

eviks wrote: post #29
dmitrygr wrote: post #21

This 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.

Native OS is limited to a few apps, so not seamless?

Screenshots auto-do OCR and you can screenshot anything.

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#34

Post by eviks »

dmitrygr wrote: post #31
eviks wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native OS is limited to a few apps, so not seamless?

Screenshots auto-do OCR and you can screenshot anything.

Yes, 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

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#35

Post by mdrzn »

wodenokoto wrote: post #27
hu3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 11 native screenshot tool does OCR for me. You can also get it free with PowerToys from Microsoft and press WIN+SHIFT+T.

> 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

The screenshot and the OCR are two different commands and keybinds. Check Powertoys.

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#36

Post by hu3 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #27
hu3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 11 native screenshot tool does OCR for me. You can also get it free with PowerToys from Microsoft and press WIN+SHIFT+T.

> 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

After 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-too...

In this tool there's a button that does OCR: 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.

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#38

Post by c0wb0yc0d3r »

selcuka wrote: post #14
jedbrooke wrote: post #5

> 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

Interestingly the macOS one is not very accurate. I took a screenshot of your comment and macOS OCR read the "cmd+shift+4" as "cod+shift+4".

I wonder why that is? Could it mean that Apple trained their ocr tool to favor nontechnical text. Meaning the tool determined that “cod” was more likely than “cmd”

Interestingly, iOS corrected “cmd” to “cod” when I first typed it out.

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#39

Post by evilduck »

bobnamob wrote: post #17
evilduck wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works in Photos.app for searching for text in your photo albums too. macOS OCR behavior extends to most similar things in iOS too.

Which makes Photos.app a surprisingly good recipe book.

Also 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.

Re: Show HN: I launched a super cheap and simple to use OCR tool for macOS

#40

Post by gumboshoes »

jedbrooke wrote: post #5

> 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

I disabled that function because it gives the false illusion that docs and images can be saved with text and then will be indexable and searchable in the Finder and other apps; they are not. When I open a PDF, I need to know that it has native text actually saved in the file. If it doesn't, then I will OCR it so it is for sure indexable and searchable.
Post reply on HN