NormCap

Despite recent advancements in technology, some problems will always persist, such as the difficulty of transforming images of text into selectable fragments for easily copying and pasting wherever one sees fit.

Luckily, thanks to the open-source community, solutions to these problems come in many shapes and sizes, one of them being NormCap’s character detection app.

The program works by selecting a portion of the screen via the mouse. Holding and dragging the cursor across an area captures a rectangular image that is quickly processed using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. After the image is scanned, the detected characters are copied to clipboard for easily pasting in other applications.

The application’s way of functioning is similar to Windows’ built-in shortcut for the Snipping Tool, which will be familiar for many users. Starting it automatically generates a red border along the screen’s edges, in order to let the user know that the program is ready for selecting the zone for recognition.

In terms of settings, clicking the red icon in the top right corner of the screen when starting the app allows users to keep the program running in the system tray for better accessibility. Automatic updates can also be enabled, and users can choose between a raw text detection or a neatly formatted version for easier pasting. Support for multiple monitors is also included, making the app handy for productivity-based setups.

While there is no keyboard shortcut option available, users can easily replicate that functionality using open-source software such as AutoHotKey in order to avoid searching for the app on the desktop, taskbar or Start Menu. For good measure, a quick notification pops up after capturing the content in order to let the user know that the operation was successfully executed.

Depending on the circumstances, many people choose to send screenshots of text content while on their phones, due to limitations with the operating system or third-party software. For those who receive them on desktop, it can feel tiring to retype the screenshot’s content, which is where the OCR function comes into play.

For beta testers or programmers, certain popup windows, notifications or error logs do not have selectable text, and many of them may disappear automatically, leaving users an insufficient amount of time to retype them for searching online for a solution. As such, being able to instantly extract the text from these mediums can save a lot of energy, time and nerves.

Whether your friends send you screenshots with lecture notes instead of documents, or you have to deal with bug-testing operating systems whose error windows have non-selectable text, NormCap can be a valuable tool for extracting text from an image and copying it to the clipboard.