How To Reviews

Copy Text From Picture on macOS Sierra with OneNote

Written by John

We all know the convenience that comes with the copy and paste feature available in many computer platforms. All you have to do is highlight a chunk of text, press Command +C and the text will be copied to the clipboard no matter how large it is. You are then required to paste it in the destination you want by just pressing Command+V and you will have a copy of the text. You do not have to type it again in a different document. It makes life so much easier.

You can copy text from a document, a web page and other locations and paste it elsewhere but when you are dealing with an image the usual procedure for copying text does not work. You can copy the entire image but not a chunk of text from it.

It is not impossible to copy text from a picture. It can actually be done with the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. These have the capabilities of extracting text from images. So, what are these softwares and how can you get your hands on one?

There are many OCR softwares available at a price and some free ones too. There is one that is very common and many people have it on their computers only that they do not know it is an OCR they can use to copy text from pictures. This is none other but Microsoft OneNote.

Using Microsoft OneNote for macOS Sierra to copy text from images

OneNote for Mac from Microsoft has received optical character recognition capabilities. This is not the only change. Microsoft has also made it possible to close a window without quitting the application. Reading shared notebooks has also been made better with reduced clutter when viewing such. This OneNote is nothing short of better than the previous version.

The OCR capabilities in OneNote for mac allow users to find text in images, copy it and paste it into notes and even external applications. The optical character recognition property is able to recognize text in pictures and differentiate it from images. It then extracts the text so you can copy it and paste it elsewhere and edit it as you wish. You do not have to manually type the text on the image as would have been the case without this OCR software.

The images on which OneNote’s OCR can work include screenshots taken on the Mac, scanned images and camera shots taken with mobile phones and other cameras. Just send the picture to your Mac and insert it on any page in OneNote. Alternatively, copy the image and paste it on OneNote. You can now be able to extract the text and use it as you wish.

Copy text from the picture:

OneNote on macOS Sierra

1. Open Microsoft OneNote.
2. From the tabs at the top, click on “insert.”
3. Click on the “pictures”.
4. A new window will appear. From here, select the picture you would like to extract text from.
5. Click on insert. You can then proceed to copy text as explained above.

Copy Text from Picture in OneNote

6. Right Click (Ctrl+Click) on the pictures then select “Copy text from picture” option in the menu. This command may react immediately or may take some time. This will depend on the complexity, legibility and size of text in the picture

All the text on the image is copied and you can paste it wherever you wish. To do this, place the cursor where you want to paste the text and press Command + V on the keyboard. The accuracy with which text can be extracted depends on the quality of the picture captured and its eligibility. It is therefore important that you take sharp pictures that show readable text. Hand-written documents are less likely to be accurately copied. After extracting the text be sure to go though it and ascertain that it is the text you wanted copied.

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