NormCap

NormCap is a cool tool that we often think of when we hear about OCR, which stands for optical character recognition. You know, those apps or AI services that pull text from images? Well, NormCap takes it a step further! It’s a free and open-source app that can grab text from pretty much anywhere on your computer.

Multi-Platform Support

One of the best parts? NormCap works on all the major platforms—Windows, macOS, and most Linux distributions thanks to AppImage packaging. So no matter what device you’re using, you’re covered!

How to Use NormCap

When you start up the app, you’ll see a pink border appear on your screen. To capture text, just use your mouse to select the area you want. Wait a couple of seconds, and then you can paste the captured text wherever you need it!

User-Friendly Interface

The user interface is pretty simple. The main thing to remember is that if you click on the sprocket icon in the upper right corner, you'll find all your settings options. Here, you can change things like the language for better accuracy and explore different capture modes.

Capture Modes Explained

Speaking of capture modes, there are two main ones: Raw Mode and Parse Mode. In Raw Mode, NormCap captures exactly what it sees—so line breaks stay as they are. But if you're looking for something more formatted, Parse Mode steps in! It looks at the text and adjusts it based on certain rules.

The Scoring System

The way Parse Mode works is pretty neat. It first scores each rule to figure out what type of text it’s dealing with—like single line or multi-line formats. Then it takes the rule with the highest score to format your text correctly.

Variety of Text Types

The rules include Single line, Multi line, Paragraphs, Emails, and URLs. So whatever kind of text you're capturing, NormCap has got options!

No Need for Images!

You might think NormCap is just like any other OCR tool out there—but it's not! The unique part about this app is its flexibility since you don’t even have to load images to use it. Want to check it out? You can download NormCap here.