Microsoft PowerToys is a suite of tools designed for power users to streamline their Windows experience and increase productivity. Finney is posting his progress on Github, and with most of the core functionality already in place (thanks to Text Grab), we should see a release within the next few months. PowerOCR is still in development with no set release date, and it is one of two new tools to be added to Microsoft PowerToys – Screen Ruler was also announced recently. He explained that OCR is performed 'by selecting a rectangular region, clicking a word, or right-clicking an image file and selecting PowerOCR.' Similar optical character recognition was made available on the latest iterations of macOS and iOS Live Text, while Windows users have had to make do with third-party software such as Text Grab, on which PowerOCR is based.įinney announced the tool on July 4 through a Github pull request. Microsoft does offer OCR in OneNote though, which is free to download. It is not exactly unchartered waters as OCR has existed for decades, but until now there was no hint of such a functionality getting added at the OS level in Windows. Created by Windows app developer Joseph Finney, the feature allows users to pull text from images using OCR (optical character recognition). The latest addition to Microsoft's PowerToys suite is a tool called PowerOCR. While not entirely baked in the operating system, Windows users should be getting a similar feature in their PowerToys toolbox called PowerOCR. It allows users to copy text from any image and paste it into a document or message. In context: Apple introduced Live Text with the release of iOS 15 and macOS Monterey.

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