NormCap
OCR powered screen-capture tool to capture information instead of images. For Linux,
macOS and Windows.



Links: Source Code |
Documentation |
FAQs |
Releases |
Changelog

Quickstart
Choose one of the options for a prebuilt release. If you encounter an issue please
take a look at the FAQs or
report it.
Windows
Linux
macOS
Note: You have to allow the unsigned application on first start: "System Preferences" →
"Security & Privacy" → "General" → "Open anyway". You also have to allow NormCap to take
screenshots. (#135)
Install Python package
As an alternative to a prebuilt package from above you can install the
NormCap Python package for Python >=3.9, but it
is a bit more complicated:
On Linux
sudo apt install build-essential tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev wl-clipboard
sudo pacman -S tesseract tesseract-data-eng wl-clipboard
sudo dnf install tesseract wl-clipboard
sudo zypper install python3-devel tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-devel wl-clipboard
pip install normcap
./normcap
On macOS
brew install tesseract tesseract-lang
pip install normcap
./normcap
On Windows
1. Install Tesseract 5
by using the
installer provided by UB Mannheim.
2. Identify the path to Tesseract base folder. It should contain a /tessdata
subfolder
and the tesseract.exe
binary. Depending on if you installed Tesseract system-wide or
in userspace, the base folder should be:
C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR
or
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Programs\Tesseract-OCR
3. Adjust environment variables:
-
Create an environment variable TESSDATA_PREFIX
and set it to your Tesseract base
folder, e.g.: "System Properties" → Tab "Advanced" → "Environment Variables..." →
"New..." → Variable: TESSDATA_PREFIX
, Value: "C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR"
-
Append Tesseract's base folder to the environment variable PATH
, e.g.: "System
Properties" → Tab "Advanced" → "Environment Variables..." → Section "User variables"
→ Select PATH
→ "Edit..." → Add a new entry "C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR"
-
To test your setup, open a new cmd
-terminal and run:
tesseract --list-langs
4. Install and run NormCap:
pip install normcap
normcap
Why "NormCap"?
See XKCD:

Development
Prerequisites for setting up a development environment are:
Python >=3.9,
uv and
Tesseract >=5.0 (incl. language
data).
git clone https://github.com/dynobo/normcap.git
cd normcap
uv venv
uv sync
uv run pre-commit install
uv run python -m normcap
Credits
This project uses the following non-standard libraries:
- pyside6 - bindings for Qt UI Framework
And it depends on external software:
Packaging is done with:
- briefcase - converting Python projects into
standalone apps
Thanks to the maintainers of those nice tools!
Similar open source tools
If NormCap doesn't fit your needs, try those alternatives (no particular order):
Certification

Contributors
Made with contrib.rocks