There’s many cool inner workings that make Windows run smooth everyday, but are you wondering what is Windows OCR? There’s a chance that you’ve probably heard of this one way or another anyway, as apps like OneNote support the OCR natively. Well, to answer that question, Windows OCR is short for Windows Optical Character Recognition. It comes as an API in Windows for system apps and third-party apps alike to use to help you grab text from your screen and turn it onto editable text.
Not all apps use it, but there’s two apps in particular that leverage the Windows OCR to the fullest. The first is Text Grab, developed by JoeFinApps. Microsoft’s Power Toys tool also has a Text Extractor Tool, based on Text Grab, that uses the Windows OCR.
Available for $10, Text Grab is the best app that uses Windows OCR. It is super powered and really can change the way that you work. It doesn’t even have to run in the background, and it has multiple modes of use. Thanks to Text Grab, you can use a rectangular selection tool and grab text from any region on your screen, and then have it copied to your clipboard. As an example, if you want to copy data from a table seen in a YouTube video. You also can use the app’s Grab Frame mode, which has a floating window that can capture text within that open window. There’s even a Edit Text Window mode, where you can manipulate the text like you would in Notepad. We demo the app for you below.
A second app that uses Windows OCR is Microsoft’s free utility for Windows 10 and Windows 11, PowerToys. You can install PowerToys for free, and set up a keyboard shortcut to enjoy the option to copy text from an image, video, or anything you have on your screen. Once PowerToys is installed, launch the settings app, scroll down, choose Text Extractor and make sure that Enable Text Extractor is selected. You can then fire up the tool by using Windows Key, Shift, and T and select whatever you’d like to copy as text.
In both cases, Text Grab and PowerToys work on your PC without internet connectivity. Both are reliable ways to copy text, and you never have to worry about performance ot other reliability issues.
JoeFin Apps 