- Windows 11S Snipping tools seem to get an improved OCR feature
- New OCR setting can more easily copy text from everything on screen
- It’s still in testing but will hopefully get to the finished version of Windows 11 soon
Windows 11’s snippet tool could soon be turned on with an impressively easy new way to extract the text from everything on the screen.
This ability was uncovered by testing regular contributors to Windows 11-related leaks on X, Phantomofearth. However, we have not told what is building it from, so presumably it was the latest preview release or a recent one.
The Snipping tool gets a full screen OCR text extractor, which essentially is the Powertoys tool, inbox -using the better OCR models used by Snipping Tool! Here is a demo.lets, you copy text without having to take a screen shot to do what Win+Shift+T will also be available. pic.twitter.com/zwteelk725February 20, 2025
You can see how it works to extract text (via OCR Tech or Optical Character Recognition) with the permission of a video of the feature in action in the above post on X.
To summarize it, the user Vindows 11’s Snipping tool and then select the ‘Text Extractor’ feature and draw a box around the on -screen area from which they will extract text.
Snipping Tool then highlights all the text inside the box and offers an opportunity to copy it to the clipboard, and from there it can be inserted into a document (or elsewhere).
It is true that Snipping Tool already has an OCR capability, but it only works with a screen shot you have taken. This new approach is a much more streamlined and practical way of working, as you can simply use the feature directly on what is currently displayed on the screen.
Analysis: A Useful Recruits From Powertoys
This gives Snipping Tool a lot of flexibility, so you can, as shown in the above example, remove all the text from a Windows 11 menu (please). It works for something on the screen and since you don’t have to take a screen shot anymore, this OCR feature does the more practical as mentioned.
This is something that Microsoft has been working on for a while now that Phantomofearth first observed the tool a few months back in November 2024. It has been significantly beaten significantly since then, and as the leaking points out, it is now basically equivalent to it Same functionality in Microsoft’s Powertoys package with tools.
With good luck, this slicker form of OCR for snipping tools could arrive in the finished version of Windows 11 before too long.
Via XDA developers
