screenText

A macOS utility that captures a selected area of your screen and extracts text from it using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The extracted text is automatically copied to your clipboard for easy use.

Features

• Screen Area Selection: Interactive screen capture using macOS's built-in screencapture tool
• OCR Processing: Uses Apple's Vision framework for accurate text recognition
• Clipboard Integration: Automatically copies recognized text to clipboard
• Fast Processing: Optimized for quick text extraction
• Error Handling: Comprehensive error messages and validation

Requirements

• macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer - Required for Vision framework OCR
• Xcode Command Line Tools - For compiling Swift code
• Screen Recording Permission - macOS will prompt for this on first run

Installation & Usage

Method 1: Direct Compilation (Recommended)

1. Clone or download the project:

   git clone <repository-url>
   cd screen2text

2. Compile the Swift file:

   swiftc MyApp.swift -o screen2text

3. Run the application:

   ./screen2text

Method 2: Create an Executable Script

1. Make the script executable:

   chmod +x MyApp.swift

2. Run directly (requires Swift to be in PATH):

   swift MyApp.swift

How to Use

1. Run the application using one of the methods above
2. Select screen area: A crosshair cursor will appear - click and drag to select the area containing text
3. Wait for processing: The app will process the image and extract text
4. Text is copied: The recognized text is automatically copied to your clipboard
5. View results: The extracted text is also displayed in the terminal

Example Output

✅ OCR result copied to clipboard:

Hello World!
This is some sample text
that was captured from the screen.

Troubleshooting

Permission Issues

• Screen Recording: If prompted, grant screen recording permission in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Screen Recording
• Accessibility: May need accessibility permissions for clipboard access

Compilation Issues

• Xcode Command Line Tools: Install with xcode-select --install
• Swift version: Ensure you have a recent version of Swift installed

OCR Issues

• No text found: Ensure the selected area contains clear, readable text
• Poor recognition: Try selecting a larger area or ensure text has good contrast
• Language support: Currently optimized for English (en-US)

Technical Details

• Screen Capture: Uses macOS screencapture command-line tool
• OCR Engine: Apple's Vision framework with VNRecognizeTextRequest
• Image Processing: Converts NSImage to CGImage for Vision processing
• Threading: Uses DispatchSemaphore for synchronous OCR processing
• Error Handling: Comprehensive validation and error reporting

Customization

Change Recognition Language

Edit line 58 in MyApp.swift:

request.recognitionLanguages = ["pt-BR"] // For Portuguese

Adjust Recognition Level

Edit line 56 in MyApp.swift:

request.recognitionLevel = .accurate  // For better accuracy (slower)

License

This project is open source. Feel free to modify and distribute as needed.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.