normcap

NormCap

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

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

Installation

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

• NormCap-0.6.0-x86_64-Windows.msi (Installer)
• NormCap-0.6.0-x86_64-Windows.zip (Portable)

Linux

It's recommended to install NormCap from Flathub:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub com.github.dynobo.normcap

Alternative options:

• NormCap-0.6.0-x86_64.AppImage - ⚠️ deprecated (Requires fuse)
• normcap @ AUR (Arch/Manjaro)

macOS

Note: You must allow the unsigned application on first start: "System Preferences" → "Security & Privacy" → "General" → "Open anyway". You also need to allow NormCap to take screenshots. (#135)

• NormCap-0.6.0-x86_64-macOS.dmg (Installer for x86/64)
• NormCap-0.6.0-arm64-macOS.dmg (Installer for M1)

Use Python package

As an alternative to the prebuilt packages above, you can install the NormCap Python package for Python >=3.9, but it requires more setup:

On Linux

# Install dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt install build-essential tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev wl-clipboard

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

## Install dependencies (Fedora)
sudo dnf install tesseract wl-clipboard

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

# 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. Identify the path to the Tesseract base folder. It should contain a /tessdata subfolder and the tesseract.exe binary. Depending on whether 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:

# Install normcap
pip install normcap

# Run
normcap

Development

Prerequisites for setting up a development environment: Python >=3.9, uv, and Tesseract >=5.0 (including language data).

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/dynobo/normcap.git

# Change into project directory
cd normcap

# Create virtual env and install dependencies
uv sync

# Register pre-commit hook
uv run pre-commit install

# Run NormCap in virtual env
uv run python -m normcap

Contribute to UI translations

Please use Weblate to complement or correct text for existing languages as well as for adding new languages.

(If you prefer not to use Weblate, you can also do it manually, but be aware that this is more cumbersome.)

Credits

This project uses the following non-standard libraries:

• pyside6 - bindings for Qt UI Framework

And it depends on external software:

• tesseract - OCR engine
• zxing-cpp - QR & barcode detection
• wl-clipboard - Wayland clipboard utilities
• xclip - CLI to the X11 clipboard

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 these alternatives (no particular order):

• TextSnatcher (Linux)
• GreenShot (Windows, macOS)
• TextShot (Windows)
• gImageReader (Linux, Windows)
• Capture2Text (Windows)
• Frog (Linux)
• Textinator (macOS)
• Text-Grab (Windows)
• dpScreenOCR (Linux, Windows)
• PowerToys Text Extractor (Windows)

Why "NormCap"?

See XKCD:

Certification

Contributors

Made with contrib.rocks