Textify
Have you ever wanted to copy some text from a dialog box which doesn’t provide such functionality?
Textify was created to solve this problem: you can point your mouse over the text, click on the mouse shortcut (Shift + Middle click by default), and get a selectable view of the text.
Download
textify_setup.exe (588.73 kB, changelog)
Latest version: v1.9
Source code
https://github.com/m417z/Textify
Demonstration
Textify and Google Chrome
Here are the steps to make Google Chrome work with Textify:
- Open Google Chrome, and navigate to the following URL:
chrome://accessibility/. - Check the checkboxes under Global accessibility mode.
To keep accessibility always enabled for Chrome, add the following command line parameter to your Chrome shortcut:
--force-renderer-accessibility
Translations
If you’d like to translate Textify to your language, please refer to this comment.
Hi
Does this programme work inside games?
Hi Noma,
It depends on the game, but most likely not. Textify uses the accessibility API, and games usually draw everything manually and discard the textual information once the frame is on the screen. But you can just try it out.
Hello.
Does this programme auto paste and send enter.
thank you.
Hi,
No, it doesn’t have such functionality.
how to use this code
what is the POINT library
You need to download WTL 10 and extract it to C:\WTL10 to compile Testify.
how to i can use console mode this application
like textify (x,y) and this return value
i need this
Hi,
There’s no way to do that with Textify, but you can take its code and adjust it to fit your needs. The interesting part is here.
how to run this code
i run in visual studio 2013 but error
as I can make me copy a text that moves to the last example from 1 to 1000 only copea until 137 I want it to reach up to the thousand that I modify
I rarely have a use for this but keep it around as a “just in case”. I’d appreciate to not be reminded twice a day that there is an update that turns out to be simply a new language translation, which I have no use for.
You can always turn off update checking. Any feature has no use for some users and is useful for others.
I would like to copy a long text vertically but does not reach the end just copy halfway I would like you to copy everything
The limit is imposed by the target program. See my reply here: https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-4#comment-12580
Fantastic utility! Thank you for it, it provides access to so many things I otherwise could see yet not copy (I use it mostly for app dialog stuff in troubleshooting and documentation).
is there any way how can i use it on mac ???
Textify is a Windows only program. Perhaps it can run in Wine, I never tried it.
Textfy is no longer working on Windows 10.
What’s not working?
On Windows 10-21H1, it used to be usable and suddenly became unusable.
Google Chrome was also usable, but is no longer usable.
In Microsoft Edge, the page title is displayed.
In Waterfox, it can be used normally.
Sounds like a Chrome-specific problem. See the “Textify and Google Chrome” section at the top of this page.
Thank you, it is now available in chrome
is there a version for ubuntu?
Textify is a Windows only program. Perhaps it can run in Wine, I never tried it.
Hello, this is a really great software, thanks for your efforts and sharing
I just recently used it and I found a problem that the memory footprint of the software is getting higher and higher and is not being freed
My system is win7 browser is ie11
This is an animated demonstration
https://i.ibb.co/LY1CmzG/test.gif
Hi,
I can reproduce the problem, but I’m not sure how to fix it. You’re using the Internet Explorer control which I added using code that wasn’t written by me (see also this blog post). I didn’t do a lot of changes to it, so I suspect there might be a memory leak in the project.
In fact, since newer versions of Textify can use browsers such as Chrome and Firefox, and since Internet Explorer is deprecated, I thought about removing the IE control altogether.
One of the tiniest and most useful software that I have ever seen! I can’t believe that I haven’t noticed about this good utility before. Thanks! :]
This program so usefull so much time was saved on my work. Thank you creator of this amazing program.
When using textify, shortcut keys are often unavailable. I don’t know why. My computer system is Windows 7
You didn’t provide much details, but I suspect that it might have to do with the
LowLevelHooksTimeoutconfiguration. See:https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/desktop/legacy/ms644985(v=vs.85)#remarks
If the value is too low, it’s known to cause problems to programs that use moues or keyboard hooks like Textify.
Thank you. I’ve raised it
thanks fo you !I have raised this value
Hi
Why the Textify can’t get text on other software? thank you.
Hi,
Please provide more details. What do you mean? What happens instead? Do you see any error message?
When i use Textify in windows and chorme it works fine.
How to get text in other programs?
In which program you don’t get text?
https://www.megahubhk.com/en/pt-tutorial/stock-quote/
Software name: powerticker
https://youtu.be/RIiU-0MYHf4
Power Ticker (software)
Is the problem specific to this single program? Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the program is implemented. There’s a tool from Microsoft called Inspect which shows automation-related information. It can be downloaded here. You can compare Textify and Inspect to make sure it’s not a bug in Textify.
Thank you so much
Hi,
Thank you for this great utility ! I ticked “start with windows” during installation so Textify starts with windows (10/11), but it won’t launch a python script when clicking a custom icon with :
command=”C:\Users...\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310\python.exe” myscript.py
or
command=py.exe myscript.py
Until I close Textify (right click -> quit) and relaunch it, and everything works fine afterwards until the next startup. Do you know why ?
If I disable the auto-start and launch it manually, it works as expected… I don’t know what is wrong with the autostart.
Thank you,
Hi Floriant,
Where is myscript.py located? Have you tried specifying the full path?
That’s my only idea based on the information you provided.
Hi Michael,
Sorry for my late reply but that was it, I needed to specify the full path of my script (I put it in textify folder) in the command.
So when you launch Textify by hand the current folder is its folder, but that isn’t the case with autostart.
Thank you for your help and making this great little software !
Donde va este comando “–force-renderer-accessibility”
Right click on your Chrome (or any other Chromium-based browser – Edge, Brave, Opera, etc.) shortcut, choose “properties”, and add it here:
https://i.imgur.com/RIGxLOs.png
Hi, thanks a lot for this sweet utility. My question is, can commands be tweaked to run programs (with copied text command line arguments), instead of just browser searches? I tried testing it but couldn’t get it to work.
For example, Everything uses the following format: “Everything.exe [filename] [-options]”. I tried several variations of “command=C:\Program Files\Everything\Everything64.exe %rs” but they all failed with an error. Is it something I’m missing, and if not, can this functionality be possibly added in future updates? Thanks again.
Hi Naturo,
Try quoting the path of Everything like this:
command="C:\Program Files\Everything\Everything64.exe" %rsIt worked. I’m sure I tried the same thing earlier and got an error. Must have been a typo somewhere. Thanks for the quick reply and sorry for wasting your time with something as stupid as a typo.
Crap, the question popped up the second after I posted the previous reply. Is there a setting to change the size of the icons? They look kind of tiny on my 4k screen.
Also on the subject, I only have 8 (web) buttons so far, but with non-web support, I already think of making at least 5-6 more–and that’s just a start. If you plan any further development of the tool, may I suggest considering a setting for a maximum row length for users with a lot of buttons? So with row_length=8, the 9th icon will go on the second row, instead of infinitely expanding the first one (which it presumably does–again, I haven’t tested beyond 8). Just an idea.
No. Can you post a screenshot to show how it looks? Near the taskbar perhaps, for scale?
It does, here’s a screenshot of a user with a lot of icons:
https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-4#comment-12964
I’ll consider adding rows for this case.
Sure. This was taken at 3840×2160, custom scaling 110%. The photoshopped prototype on the right is a quick illustration of what I had in mind.
https://ibb.co/DMKtBbK
P.S. Just installed Windhawk. It’s awesome.
It looks as intended, the icon sizes are the same as the tray icons, among other elements. But it makes sense to offer the option for larger icons. I’ll look into adding it.
Thanks, that’s great! 🙂
Added both options in v1.9.
To use the new options, add the following to the configuration file and set the values per your preference:
Can you please make the macOS version of this practical app?
Unlikely, sorry. Textify can’t be easily ported to an OS other than Windows, and developing a new tool for macOS with similar functionality is not something I’m planning to do.
Thanks for your reply, Micheal. It is so sad that a macOS version is out of your plans.
P.S:
The “Hover Text” portion in macOS seems could be utilized to develop a great app to enable copy text from any dialogue such as Textify. However, I am not a programmer to make it possible 🙁
Michael, add that, please:
[config]silent_start=1
[web_buttons]
hide=1
You can use the
-hidewndcommand line switch.You can remove all
[web_button_n]entries. Or just rename[web_button_1]to something like[web_button_1_disabled].ОК. Could you add such a key / option for autorun?
Oh, thanks. 🙂
Did you configure Textify to run at startup manually? If yes, add the
-hidewndcommand line switch to the startup entry or shortcut. If not, the setup wizard should have added this command line switch for you – make sure it exists and that there are no other startup entries.Broke work in browsers.
https://www.skidrowreloaded.com/
FireFox:
report – text cannot be extracted (“текст не может быть извлечен”)
Maxthon:
The same message on any text – “Skidrow & Reloaded Games – Download PC Games, Repacks, DLCs, Cracks, Updates, Cracked Games – Maxthon (Пользователь 1)”
…in previous versions could hook and copy text.
…
Only in IE11 everything continues to work as it should.
I wasn’t able to reproduce the problem in Firefox. I saw some problems in Chrome (Maxthon is probably based on Chromium too), these problems look like bugs in Chromium’s implementation of the UI Automation API.
There’s a tool from Microsoft called Inspect which shows automation-related information. It can be downloaded here. You can compare Textify and Inspect to make sure it’s not a bug in Textify.
You can also add
use_legacy_msaa_api=1under[config]to make Textify use the old API. For details, see the recent blog post.“I wasn’t able to reproduce the problem in Firefox…”
Weird… ok, I’ll stay on v1.8.11.0 for now.
I have a suggestion and a feature request…
Suggestion: I think it would be nice if you removed the “read-only” property from the edit box in dialog #201, enabling the user to overwrite the text in the box with something else. I have done this, using Resource Hacker, and it makes Textify much more useful. For example, if I want to look up a movie on IMDb, I simply activate Textify, type in the movie’s name, then click on my IMDb button. Textify then opens a browser tab on IMDb with that movie listed at the top of the results.
Feature Request: It would be awesome if you could add a button that, when a user types in a search term, it would, instead of launching something, instead highlight every instance of that search term throughout all opened windows. There used to be a program called Text Spotlight that did this, but the company went out of business a long time ago.
Here is an archived copy of that company’s web page:
https://archive.org/details/tucows_343343_Text_Spotlight
Thanks for creating Textify!
Thanks for the feedback.
Sounds like you’re using Textify as a launcher (like PowerToys Run is, for example). That’s not what Textify was designed for, but that’s an interesting use case. I’ll consider adding an option for it.
That’s an interesting idea, too, but it requires more development. While at it, it can be interesting to implement functionality to copy all text on the screen. Maybe one day…
I actually use Textify as it was intended (to capture text from dialog boxes, status bars, title bars, etc). I just found it useful to be able to modify the captured text.
Being able to set the number of buttons per row is a feature I have been wanting for awhile now, so thank you for that! Being able to set the size of the button icons is super cool, too.
Hi Michael,
There is a small bug it seems, when the text found by Textify is only 1 digit number this text isn’t copied to the %s variable, so the web button opens the application with an empty string. Is it possible to correct this behavior ?
Thank you.