How to capture any text from your Mac screen

Taking screenshots is a convenient way to record and jot down an important message while watching videos, advertisements, or even video calls. Don’t you want an easier way to capture text from your Mac screen so you don’t have to always sit down with pen and paper? Luckily, we’ve found an app that does this, and it’s easy to capture text from Mac screen using that.

One of the current challenges is to accurately transcribe text from your Mac’s screen, which is the main concern. Whether it’s a promo or an ad, no one wants to risk losing anything in the translation. Of course, you can pull out your phone, open the Google Translate app, and then DIY. What if it’s not as precise as it seems? Therefore, I recommend using TextSniper to capture all the important text shared in a Zoom meeting or any other online lesson.

I’ve been using TextSniper for a month now and I’m really amazed at how fast and accurate it is. Let’s start with how to set it up and use it to capture any text on your Mac screen.

Let’s start.

How to capture any text from Mac screen with TextSniper

Step 1: Download and install TextSniper.

You can buy with a one-time payment of $ 6.49 from the Mac App Store. However, another option is to pay SetApp’s monthly subscription of $ 9.99, which will allow you to get TextSniper for free with over 200 apps without paying a dime more. It seems like a good deal.

Get TextSniper from SetApp

2nd step: After installing it, you need to allow access to TextSniper to capture your screen from System Preferences. So click on the TextSniper icon in the menu bar and choose Capture Text. This will bring up the option to ask you to allow access. Click Open System Preferences.

Step 3: Once the System Preferences window opens, go to the Security & Privacy tab> Privacy, then select Screen Recording from the left pane.

Step 4: Click on the lock at the bottom left and enter the administrator password. Then check the box in the right pane on the front of TextSniper.

Step 5: After confirming this action to exit and restart. TextSniper will restart and the icon will reappear in the menu bar.

Use TextSniper to capture text from your Mac screen

Let’s say you’re watching a video, an announcement, or part of a virtual meeting.

Whenever you see some text on the screen that you need to jot down for later, you need to click on a screenshot shortcut. Here is what you need to do.

Step 1: Press the keyboard shortcut Shift + Cmd + 2 on your Mac.

2nd step: Select the area from which you want to capture the text. Once you do this, the TextSniper will display a thumbs up icon and text – Copied to Clipboard.

Step 3: Open any document or any application you want to paste the selected text into.

While TextSniper works great for everything – PDFs, images, videos, and online meetings. However, if your usage is limited to images and PDF files only, you can also try OwlOCR. It is an interesting alternative to TextSniper.

How to Capture Any Text from PDF or Image from Your Mac

While TextSniper is a fantastic option for versatile use, OwlOCR works great for its optical character recognition feature while using only for the imager and PDFs which don’t allow you to copy text easily. Here’s how to get started.

Step 1: Download the OwlOCR app from the Mac App Store.

Get the OwlOCR app

2nd step: Launch the OwlOCR app and tap the switch for language correction.

Step 3: Drag and drop the PDF or image file you need to be read by OwlOCR.

Step 4: Click the Page OCR button and let the application do its magic.

After that, the application will analyze all the text in the image and display it in the window pane next to the image.

If you have a PDF with multiple pages, you can click the OCR All button and it will extract and paste them into the window on the side.

If you want to extract text from multiple PDFs and take multiple screenshots together, you can consider purchasing the Pro version which will cost you $ 13.99.

Get smart

Entering text from images, PDFs, or videos shouldn’t be a challenge after using these two apps. Selecting text from a fast-paced video or movie can be a bit tricky, but you can always pause the video to take a screenshot. The only limitation you might find is that both apps are limited to English language only.

Both apps have helped me a lot by taking notes from the videos that were part of my online lessons. I use the two alternately and am always happy with them.