normcap

OCR powered screen-capture tool to capture information instead of images

Description

Basic usage: - Launch `normcap` - Select a region on the screen - Retrieve recognized text in clipboard

Programming language: Python

License: GNU General Public License v3.0 or later

Tags: OCR     Utilities     Multimedia     Graphics     Capture     Screen Capture    

Latest version: v0.3.3

README

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NormCap

OCR powered screen-capture tool to capture information instead of images.

Links: Repo | PyPi | Releases | Changelog | FAQs

Content: Quickstart | Python package | Contribute | Credits | Similar tools

Features

• On-screen recognition of selected text
• Multi platform support for Linux, Windows, MacOS
• Multi monitor support, incl. HDPI displays
• Parsing the text based on heuristics (optional, on by default)
• Show notifications (optional)
• Stay in system tray (optional)
• Check for updates (optional, off by default)

Quickstart

❱❱ Download pre-build package for Linux, MacOS or Windows ❰❰

If you experience issues please look at the FAQs or open an issue.

(On MacOS, allow the unsigned application on first start: "System Preferences" → "Security & Privacy" → "General" → "Open anyway". You might also need to allow NormCap to take screenshots.)

For more info, take a look at the NormCap landing page

Python package

As an alternative to a pre-build package you can install the NormCap Python package:

On Linux

# Install dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng

## Install dependencies (Arch)
sudo pacman -S tesseract tesseract-data-eng

## Install dependencies (Fedora)
sudo dnf install tesseract

# Install normcap
pip install normcap

# Run
./normcap

On MacOS

# Install dependencies
brew install tesseract tesseract-lang

# Install normcap
pip install normcap

# Run
./normcap

On Windows

1. Install Tesseract 5 by using the installer provided by UB Mannheim.

2. Adjust environment variables:

• Create a environment variable TESSDATA_PREFIX and set it to Tesseract's data folder, e.g.:

  setx TESSDATA_PREFIX "C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\tessdata"

• Append Tesseract's location to the environment variable Path, e.g.:

  setx Path "%Path%;C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR"

• Make sure to close and reopen your current terminal window to apply the new variables. Test it by running:

  tesseract --list-langs

3. Install and run NormCap:

# Install normcap
pip install normcap

# Run
normcap

Why "NormCap"?

See XKCD:

Contribute

Setup Environment

Prerequisites are Python >=3.9, Poetry, Tesseract (incl. language data).

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/dynobo/normcap.git

# Change into project directory
cd normcap

# Create virtual env and install dependencies
poetry install

# Register pre-commit hook
poetry run pre-commit install

# Run NormCap in virtual env
poetry run python -m normcap

Credits

This project uses the following non-standard libraries:

• pyside6 - bindings for Qt UI Framework
• pytesseract - wrapper for tesseract's API
• jeepney - DBUS client

Packaging is done with:

• briefcase - converting Python projects into standalone apps

And it depends on external software

• tesseract - OCR engine

Thanks to the maintainers of those nice libraries!

Similar open source tools

• TextSnatcher
• GreenShot
• TextShot
• gImageReader
• Capture2Text

Certification