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Download and Install Capture2Text

Before you can dive into the magic, you’ll need to install Capture2Text. Head over to the official website, download the program, and follow the easy installation process. It’s lightweight, so it won’t hog your computer’s resources.

Launch the Program

Once installed, open Capture2Text. There’s no need for complex setup or adjustments. The interface is minimalistic and user-friendly, perfect for those who don’t want to spend hours tweaking settings.

Select the Area of Text

Now, the real fun begins. Press Win + Q (or your customized shortcut) to activate the OCR tool. This shortcut will allow you to draw a selection box around the image text you want to extract.

Extract the Text

Once you’ve drawn the selection box, release your mouse button, and Capture2Text will instantly extract the text within the box. It will automatically copy it to your clipboard for easy pasting wherever you need.

Paste and Edit the Text

With the text now in your clipboard, paste it into a document, text editor, or wherever you need it. The beauty of Capture2Text is that it retains much of the original formatting, making editing a breeze.

Key Features That Make Capture2Text Stand Out

While there are many OCR tools out there, Capture2Text shines because of its simplicity and efficiency. Let’s explore some of its standout features:

Lightweight and Free

Who doesn’t love free software that actually works? Unlike many OCR tools that come with hefty price tags, Capture2Text offers all its features at zero cost. Plus, it’s so lightweight that it won’t slow down your computer.

Multilingual OCR Support

Need to extract text from a Japanese document? Or maybe something in French? No problem! Capture2Text supports multiple languages, making it versatile for users across the globe.

Customizable Shortcuts

Don’t like the default keyboard shortcuts? You can easily customize them to suit your workflow, adding a personal touch to your OCR experience.

Instant Clipboard Copying

One of the best features of Capture2Text is that it instantly copies the extracted text to your clipboard. This saves you time, as you don’t have to go through the extra step of manually copying it yourself.

High Accuracy with Minimal Effort

Thanks to the advanced OCR technology, the accuracy of the text recognition is impressive. Even when working with low-quality images or tricky fonts, Capture2Text performs surprisingly well.

Why You Should Choose Capture2Text Over Other OCR Tools

It’s not just about being free. It’s about the overall user experience. Capture2Text offers something many OCR tools lack—simplicity. It doesn’t bombard you with unnecessary features or complicated interfaces. Instead, it focuses on doing one thing really well: converting images to text.

Unlike more expensive software options, you don’t need to pay for a subscription or worry about limitations. For anyone seeking an efficient, no-frills OCR tool, Capture2Text is hard to beat.

Advanced Tips for Using Capture2Text

While Capture2Text is incredibly easy to use, there are a few advanced tricks that can make your experience even smoother.

Optimize the Image for Better OCR Accuracy

Before running OCR, try to clean up the image. Higher-resolution images tend to yield better results. You can use simple photo editing tools to increase contrast or remove background noise, improving text recognition.

Use Shortcuts Wisely

Since you can customize the keyboard shortcuts, think about your workflow. For example, if you often extract large blocks of text, set a shortcut that automatically selects the whole screen or a predefined area.

Utilize the Language Features

If you’re working with multilingual documents, take advantage of Capture2Text’s ability to switch between languages easily. This feature is incredibly helpful for those dealing with international documents or language-specific texts.

Keep the Software Updated

While Capture2Text works great out of the box, regular updates improve performance and add new features. Always check for updates to ensure you’re using the latest and most efficient version.

How to Perform a Standard OCR Capture

To perform a standard OCR capture using the capture box, follow these steps:

• Place your mouse pointer at the top-left corner of the text you wish to capture.
• Press the OCR hotkey (Windows Key + Q) to initiate the capture.
• Resize the blue capture box by moving your mouse over the desired text. To reposition the entire box, hold and drag the right mouse button.
• To complete the OCR capture, press the OCR hotkey again, left-click, or press ENTER. The captured text will be copied to the clipboard, and a popup displaying the text will appear (this can be disabled in settings).

Language Selection for OCR
Before capturing, select the desired OCR language in settings. Right-click the

 Capture2Text tray icon, choose “OCR Language,” and select the language.
You can quickly switch between three preset languages using the hotkeys: Windows Key + 1, 2, or 3, which can be customized in the settings.

Text Direction for Chinese/Japanese
When using Chinese or Japanese OCR, specify the text direction (vertical/horizontal/auto) with Windows Key + O. If “auto” is selected, the horizontal direction is used when the capture box width is more than twice the height, otherwise, vertical is used. This setting also affects how furigana is removed from Japanese text.

How to Perform a Text Line OCR Capture

Capture2Text can automatically capture the nearest line of text to the mouse pointer.

• Position your mouse pointer on or near the line of text.
• Press the Text Line OCR Capture hotkey (Windows Key + E).
• The captured text will be outlined and saved to the clipboard.

How to Perform a Forward Text Line OCR Capture

Capture2Text can automatically capture a line of text starting from the character closest to the mouse pointer and moving forward.

To perform a Forward Text Line OCR Capture, follow these steps:

• Position your mouse pointer on or near the starting character.
• Press the Forward Text Line OCR Capture hotkey (Windows Key + W).
• Capture2Text will outline the captured text and save the OCR result to the clipboard.

How to Perform a Bubble OCR Capture

Capture2Text can automatically capture text from a comic book speech or thought bubble, provided the bubble is fully enclosed.

To perform a Bubble OCR Capture, follow these steps:

• Place your mouse pointer in the empty area of the bubble (away from the text).
• Press the Bubble OCR Capture hotkey (Windows Key + S).
• Capture2Text will outline the captured text and save the OCR result to the clipboard.

How to Select the Active OCR Language

To choose the active OCR language, right-click the Capture2Text tray icon, select “OCR Language,” and pick a language from the list.

Translation

To enable the translation feature, open the settings dialog by right-clicking the tray icon and selecting “Settings…” Then, click on the “Translate” tab.

Check the “Append translation to clipboard” checkbox to add the translated text to the clipboard using the specified separator.
Check the “Show translation in popup window” checkbox to display the translated text alongside the OCR text in the popup window. For example:

Each installed OCR language can be translated into a different language.

Note 1: Some OCR languages lack translation support and will not be displayed.

Note 2: The translation feature requires an Internet connection.

To access the settings, right-click on the Capture2Text tray icon located in the bottom-right corner of your screen, then choose the “Settings…” option. This will open the Settings dialog. You can hover over most option labels to view helpful tooltips that provide explanations for each setting.

In the Hotkeys tab, you can assign specific keys and modifiers for each hotkey. To disable a hotkey, simply choose “<Unmapped>” from the drop-down menu.

• Current OCR Language: Choose the active OCR language to use. You can also change it from the tray icon menu.

• Quick-Access Languages: Set the languages for the quick-access language hotkeys.

• Whitelist: Limit the OCR engine to recognize only the specified characters in the captured text.

• Blacklist: Ensure the OCR engine ignores specific characters in the captured text.

• Text Orientation: Defines the text orientation (horizontal or vertical) for captures, especially for Chinese or Japanese OCR. If set to “Auto,” horizontal orientation will be used if the capture width is more t

• han twice the height; otherwise, vertical will be applied. This setting also impacts how Japanese furigana is processed. You can adjust the orientation via the tray icon menu or with the text orientation hotkey.

• Tesseract Config File: An advanced option to load a custom Tesseract configuration file.

• Trim Capture: During OCR preprocessing, trims the image to its foreground pixels and adds a border to enhance accuracy and consistency.

• Deskew Capture: Attempts to correct slanted text in the image during OCR preprocessing for better recognition results.

Includes settings for configuring automatic captures. Hover over each option label to view more details.

Enables you to customize the colors of the OCR Capture Box. You can modify the transparency by adjusting the “Alpha channel” value in the color selection window.

Lets you customize the preview’s position, color, and font. To disable the preview, simply uncheck the “Show Preview Box” option.

Save to Clipboard: Copies the captured OCR text directly to the clipboard.

Show Popup Window: Displays the captured OCR text in a popup window.

• Keep Line Breaks: Select this option if you want to preserve carriage returns and line feeds in the captured text.

• Logging: Allows you to save all OCR captures to a specified file in a custom format. You can use tokens like ${capture}, ${translation}, ${timestamp}, ${linebreak}, and ${tab}. The default format is: "${capture}${linebreak}".

• Call Executable: This advanced feature lets you execute a program after OCR is completed. You can use tokens such as ${capture}, ${translation}, and ${timestamp}. Example:
  C:\Anaconda3\python.exe "C:\Scripts\test.py" "${capture}" "${translation}".

Enables text replacements, with support for regular expressions. The text on the left will be substituted with the text on the right. You can set different replacements for each OCR language.

Refer to the translation section for more details.

This page allows you to activate the text-to-speech feature, adjust the volume, and customize options like voice, rate, and pitch for each OCR language.

Enable Text-to-Speech: Turn on text-to-speech when text is captured.

When enabled and the voice is not set to “<Disabled>”, a “Say” button will appear in the popup dialog.

Volume: Controls the master volume for the text-to-speech feature, applicable across all languages.

OCR Language: Set specific speech options for the selected OCR language.

Rate: Adjusts the speed of the text-to-speech voice.

Pitch: Modifies the pitch of the text-to-speech voice.

Voice: Choose the voice for the text-to-speech feature. Select “<Disabled>” to turn off text-to-speech for the chosen OCR language.

Preview: Test the current settings for rate, pitch, and voice.

Final Thoughts on Capture2Text

Capture2Text emerges as a hero for anyone dealing with image-based text extraction. Its ease of use, high accuracy, and unbeatable price (free!) make it a must-have tool for Windows users. Don’t let important information stay locked inside an image—use Capture2Text to unleash its potential and make your work more productive.