NormCap

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

Links: Repo | PyPi | Releases | Changelog | FAQs

Quickstart

Install a pre-build release:

• Windows: NormCap-0.3.4-Windows.msi
• Linux: NormCap-0.3.4-x86_64.AppImage
• macOS: NormCap-0.3.4-MacOS.dmg
  _{(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. Background: #135)}

Install from system repository:

• Arch / Manjaro: Install the normcap package from AUR.

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

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 libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev

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

## Install dependencies (Fedora)
sudo dnf install tesseract

## Install dependencies (openSUSE)
sudo zypper install python3-devel tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-devel

# 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:

Development

Prerequisites for setting up a development environment are: Python >=3.9, Poetry and 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

Try those to see which one suits your needs:

• TextSnatcher
• GreenShot
• TextShot
• gImageReader
• Capture2Text
• Frog

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