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TheJoeFin

TheJoeFin/Text-Grab

Windows OCR tool that captures text from screen regions, images, and PDFs and copies it to the clipboard or an editor, running fully on-device.

Open-source alternative to:ABBYY FineReaderAdobe Acrobat

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What is it?

Text Grab is a Windows app for pulling text out of anything you can see on screen, including images, videos, PDFs, and parts of apps where text cannot be selected. You select a screen region or open a supported file, run OCR, and send the result to the clipboard or into an edit window. OCR runs entirely on the device with no cloud service or per-use cost.

Beyond capture, the app includes an Edit Text Window with plain text, spreadsheet, and markdown modes, along with tools for cleaning OCR output, find and replace, regex extraction, converting stacked data into tables, and a Calc Pane for evaluating expressions line by line. Grab Templates and saved patterns let repeated extraction steps be reused, and a bulk mode processes whole folders of images or PDFs.

Text Grab supports several capture engines: Windows OCR (WinRT) by default, Tesseract as an open-source alternative, WinAI on Copilot+ PCs, and direct UI Automation for text in native controls. It also offers a command-line interface and an optional background process for global hotkeys.

Key features

  • 01Captures text from a screen region, a single word click, or an image or PDF using on-device OCR.
  • 02Supports Windows OCR, Tesseract, WinAI on Copilot+ PCs, and direct UI Automation text reading.
  • 03Edit Text Window offers plain text, spreadsheet, and markdown modes with cleanup and regex tools.
  • 04Grab Templates and saved patterns reuse extraction steps across similar documents.
  • 05Bulk processes folders of images or PDFs and writes .txt output.
  • 06Provides a command-line interface and an optional background process for global hotkeys.

Use cases

  • Copying text from screenshots, videos, or PDFs where selection is not possible.
  • Extracting tables or line items from invoices and price lists into spreadsheet form.
  • Batch OCR of a folder of scanned receipts, labels, or archived documents.
  • Keeping frequently used snippets like URLs or part numbers ready for quick paste.

Topics

#ocr#windows#text-extraction#clipboard#regex#spreadsheet#offline#wpf#dotnet#local-ai

FAQ

What is Text-Grab?
Windows OCR tool that captures text from screen regions, images, and PDFs and copies it to the clipboard or an editor, running fully on-device. Text Grab is a Windows app for pulling text out of anything you can see on screen, including images, videos, PDFs, and parts of apps where text cannot be selected. You select a screen region or open a supported file, run OCR, and send the result to the clipboard or into an edit window. OCR runs entirely on the device with no cloud service or per-use cost.
Is Text-Grab free to use? What license does it have?
Text-Grab is open source under the MIT license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is Text-Grab still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to Text-Grab was on Sep 22, 2026.
What can I use Text-Grab for?
Copying text from screenshots, videos, or PDFs where selection is not possible. Extracting tables or line items from invoices and price lists into spreadsheet form. Batch OCR of a folder of scanned receipts, labels, or archived documents. Keeping frequently used snippets like URLs or part numbers ready for quick paste.
Where can I get Text-Grab?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/TheJoeFin/Text-Grab

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