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 (593.16 kB, changelog)
Latest version: v1.10.4
Source code
https://github.com/m417z/Textify
Demonstration
Translations
If you’d like to translate Textify to your language, please refer to this comment.
it can be made to only copy letters or numbers.
What do you mean?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 solo numeros
I’m not sure what you mean. You can copy text as it is and then change it, possibly with another tool, to do the changes you need. Textify doesn’t have options to filter only letters/numbers.
[Confirmed September 6, 2022]
Close all windows when using textify in chrome. Edge can be used without any problems
Do you have a way to reproduce it? I think that I saw it once but I can no longer reproduce it. Perhaps it was a bug in Chrome which was already fixed.
been using Textify in chrome for some time without issue, now closes chrome if used.
Please see my reply above:
https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-6#comment-13954
같은 질문을 한 사용자입니다.
해결 방법은 본 페이지 설정 안내에 있었습니다.
①chrome://accessibility
⇒ 접속 후 모두 체크해 주시고.
② –force-renderer-accessibility
⇒ 크롬 바로가기 폴더에서 해당 값을 추가해주세요.(띄어쓰기로 시작)
Ex) “C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –force-renderer-accessibility
⇒ 유저별 경로가 다를 수 있습니다.
③수정한 바로가기 아이콘을 작업표시줄에 새롭게 갱신해주세요.
저는 위에 설명한 방법으로 증상을 해결하였습니다.
This is the user who asked the same question.
The solution was in this page setup guide.
①chrome://accessibility
⇒ Check all of them after connecting.
② –force-renderer-accessibility
⇒ Add the corresponding value in the Chrome shortcut folder (start with a space).
Ex) “C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –force-renderer-accessibility
⇒ The path for each user may be different.
③ Update the modified shortcut icon on the taskbar.
I solved the symptom by the method described above.
angtae’s post cleared it up for me.
Dear sir, thank you very much for the great program.
I have a problem. I’m using a program at work, it is running on Java i believe. When i use Textify inside the program, only the headline of the frame returns. Textify can not retrieve anything inside. Is there anything can be done?
Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
Hello! Could you enable Textify, when capturing a word with an ampersand (& character) in it, to also capture the & character? Textify currently ignores the & character.
Thank you!
Hi, please see the discussion here:
https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-3#comment-10205
Hello again! I took a look at the page you asked me to view, and I used Microsoft Inspect Object v7.2 [x64], and it indeed cannot see the “&” character, but this program, GetWindowText, can extract the “&” character from words. You can get it here → http://softwareok.com/?seite=Microsoft/GetWindowText/History
I also think there is some confusion about what I was asking for, and what “Ted” was asking for in his post: https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-3#comment-10205
Textify can capture the “&” character if it is separated from a word, that is, if there is at least 1 space between the “&” character and another letter/word.
I am asking about extracting the full text, including the “&” character from text that is embedded in a program, like this:
https://i.imgur.com/akGomfY.png
Textify extracts the text as ‘SHOW COMMANDS CONTAINING:’ minus the “&” character.
BTW, The above is from the super useful search tool called Everything. You can get it here: https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9787
Thank you for any help 🙂
Hi,
Right, that’s because both Microsoft Inspect and Textify use the UI Automation API, while GetWindowText uses the native API. That’s why the GetWindowText tool can’t grab text from many places, such as the taskbar, the browser, and modern apps such as Windows Calculator.
Well, there’s no “&” character in your screenshot. It just so happens that the native Windows controls allow to use the “&” character for an accelerator shortcut. For UI elements in other frameworks, such as the web, or UWP, or Qt, there might be other rules. For example, the source text of some web element might be
this is <b>bold</b>, but Textify will just grab “this is bold”, because that’s the text that’s visible on the screen. That’s what the UI Automation returns.If you need the original string from a native element, Textify is probably not the right tool for you for that specific task.
Yeah, I’m familiar with it and use it on a daily basis. Everything is great!
Thanks for the info. Appreciated!
I just found that textify actually has access keys. There are comments in the ini file. This software is really fantastic, thanks for your hard work and selfless dedication.
Hi, the tool seems nice!
But it doesn’t seem to work with telegram. Is there a way to make it work?
Thanks 🙂
Hi, please see the comments here:
https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-4#comment-13054
I need to copy some file names within a software but I am only able to copy one row at a time which isn’t really much helpful. Is there any way to counter this? I need to copy-paste these file names in Excel in bulk, any help plz?
https://imgur.com/a/1beaTEY
This was brought up a couple of times before. Right now that’s not possible with Textify. See the discussion here:
https://github.com/m417z/Textify/issues/20
Dear Michael, thank you very much for this tool!
I want to use it in a specific program but it unfortunately does not work.
I tried Microsoft Inspect. In UI Automation mode, I receive an error:
“Cannot get object from point:
[Error: FromPoint: hr=0xFFFFFFFF80070005 – Access denied]”
However, if I switch to MSAA Mode in Inspect, the text is recognized and marked as “Read Only”.
In Textify, I found that I can switch from UIA to MSAA in the .ini. However, this does not seem to solve my problem and I still cannot mark or copy any text in this program.
Can you please help me? This would help me so, so much!
Thank you in advance.
Hi Aaron,
Yes, but by default Textify tries both, and if only one of them returns a result, it uses that. The option is mainly for cases when both return a result, but one is better than the other.
What do you see? Does Textify say that the text couldn’t be retrieved?
One reason Textify may fail to retrieve the text is that it might get an incorrect element. In Inspect, can you use the “Watch cursor” mode and make sure that once you point on the desired element, it switches to the element with the text?
Also, can you upload a video recording showing how Textify behaves and how Inspect behaves (also with “Watch cursor”)?
Added web search button for spanishdict.com and youglish.com
download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ErmUxRYAj2uyslaIRPn3ccJiJ3YqBwi9
Textextraktor ist eine bequeme Möglichkeit, Text von einer beliebigen Stelle auf dem Bildschirm zu kopieren.
Possible to have keyboard shortcut? better than ALt/Ctrl or MAj + mouse
The default keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T. You can customize it under More settings.
dude thank you so much for help and you fast answer 🙂
Does not work in Macrium Reflect.
Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
Thanks. Inspect shows the following wherever I move mouse in Macrium. It looks like software prevents reading from its dialogs and menus?
“Cannot get object from point:
[Error: FromPoint: hr=0xFFFFFFFF80070005 – Access is denied.]”
I think that it’s just not supported, and the error is “Access is denied” for some unrelated reason. Also, if the program runs as administrator, it may help to run Inspect/Textify as administrator as well.
Hi Ramen, is it possible to disable the popup box entirely? I just want to silently copy the text with an alt-click. I do not want that popup box that shows the selected text. Is this possible? I tried to reduce the font to 1, but a tiny box still appears. Font 0 doesn’t work.
Hi, no, there’s no such option. Probably the easiest way is to just Alt+click a second time to hide the dialog.
Hi, could someone explain the benefits of having that installed??
By default any windows info message (error, warning etc) can be copied implicitly jus by hitting Ctl+C. Then copied text can be pasted anywhere.
What problem exactly this program solves?
Hi Zara,
Ctrl+C only works for standard message boxes. It doesn’t work in most other places, such as the taskbar, window titles, the browser, and more. Even with standard message boxes, can you easily copy part of the text? Can you easily edit and Google it? For a quick showcase which demonstrates some of the recent features, check the short video recording here:
https://ramensoftware.com/textify-v1-10-with-a-resizable-and-editable-text-popup
Does it have an limit of characters ?
I use to copy an text, and it looks it could not show it all.
Any solution for this ?
Thank you in advance
The limit is imposed by the target program. See my reply here: https://ramensoftware.com/textify/comment-page-4#comment-12580
the program is great, however is it possible to capture text over an entire area somewhat like textgrab (but with the capture accuracy of your program) ?
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/text-grab/9MZNKQJ7SL0B
Currently that’s not possible. Text Grab, like some other similar programs, uses OCR, i.e. it treats the screen as an image and tries to find text in that image. This approach has pros and cons depending on the situation.
thank you for your response,
that’s exactly why your program not using OCR works much better, but I for example have to “capture” some times tables with hundreds of values, the OCR approach doesn’t work because very often the values are wrong, that’s why your program works very well but even better if it would work on whole work areas.
Mario
I almost use Google Translate in Textify
Is there a setting that pops up immediately when I press the mouse shortcut?
No, currently there’s no such a setting.
thank you for your reply
I am using the program you made very well.
Thank you Again.
the textify program doesn`t function on telegram app in the channels that have copytext protection, even if the mouse highlight it, that makes a traceable link if we click the link in the telegram app
Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
Can it provide a blacklist function, some software does not need to read
You can already exclude processes as following:
HI , thank both , if you will and have time , can you tell me how to let texify
auto copy the content of texify pop-up ballon into clipboard ?
Or , indeed , i want to accumulate all the content into a date/time/wintitle/content log ,
or if i can auto copy , i can use a dirty cmd batch to dump it in to a log.
thanks !!
Hi,
There’s the
auto_copy_selectionoption.Perhaps this tip of using Textify together with Ditto will help you.
Sorry , in the last reply , i misspelled Textify as texify ,
I will try ‘auto_copy_selection’ var
in the Textify.ini file ,
“Textify” is the most convenient and easy to use. Thank you for developing this software.
Just want to chime in and say that I’m a big fan of this tiny but extremely useful utility.
While it could use a few minor tweaks (e.g., settings for text and Icon sizes, popup position options like Ditto’s Popup: At Cursor / At Previous Location, etc.), functionally-wise it’s pretty much perfect – which is not something I can say of most programs I use. Thanks a lot.
You’re welcome 🙂
Text size can be set via:
Icon size can be set via:
Hi, I tried to create a new web button in the settings:
[web_button_6]
icon=icons\deepl.ico
command=popup-web!https://www.deepl.com/translator
width=400
height=700
The popup window opens, but the query does not start or I cannot enter any text.
What am I doing wrong?
Hi, you didn’t pass any text in the URL that you specified. Try the following, adjust the languages according to your preference:
command=popup-web!https://www.deepl.com/translator#en/de/%sThanks for the answer, unfortunately it doesn’t work either. The writing area on deepl.com is not writable!
Can you post a screenshot of how it looks?
Okay, I have sent a screenshot by e-mail
Hi,
This works for me – examples:
[web_button_4]
name=Deutsch – Englisch
icon=icons\DeepL.ico
command=https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/en/%s
width=1200
height=900
[web_button_5]
name=Englisch – Deutsch
icon=icons\DeepL.ico
command=https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/de/%s
width=1200
height=900
Thank you very much, it works for me too!
Too bad it doesn’t work with the popup window!
Thanks for the effort!
With the popup window option, Textify tries to detect the main browser and use it, and if the detection fails, it opens an Internet Explorer popup. That’s some old code which probably should be removed, as many websites don’t support IE anymore.
What’s your default browser?
I use Firefox. The command “popup-firefox!” in Textify does not work. With the command “popup-chrome!” it works partially, but the popup window is too big and the stored dimensions are ignored!
Thanks again for your patience!
The command tries to launch the following:
firefox.exe -width 123 -height 123 -new-window "https://..."You can click Win+R and try it. Does it work? If not, perhaps Firefox isn’t properly registered on the computer.
As a workaround, you can use something like:
command=""C:\Full\Path\firefox.exe" -width 123 -height 123 -new-window "https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/de/%s""Right, the are no command line flags for dimensions for Chromium-based browsers. You can try this workaround but it doesn’t work perfectly.
I try your workaround…
Then I get the following error message:
“Could not execute command.In order to use web links, you need to have a web browser (e.g. Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox).”
Although I have both browsers installed…
Post the exact line containing the command that you used.
[web_button_8]
icon=icons\deepl.ico
command=C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe -width 123 -height 123 -new-window “https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/de/%s”
Oh, I forgot the 2 “”
now the Firefox browser opens, but still no pop-up window
Yes, I edited my comment and added the extra quotes which I forgot at first. Please make sure that it’s the same as in my comment, and if it still doesn’t work, post your full command again.
Still the same as before, the Firefox browser opens, it is also translated, but still no pop-up window.
My command:
[web_button_8]
icon=icons\deepl.ico
command=””C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -width 123 -height 123 -new-window “https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/de/%s””
I tried that, and indeed it seems that the width, height flags no longer work. I remember that they worked when I implemented this feature, not sure why Firefox changed it. An app mode (opening a popup window without an address bar) never worked.
Unfortunately, that has to be implemented on Firefox’s side rather than Textify. It was suggested before, but it seems that the suggestion for app mode in Firefox was rejected.
Textify – command / DeepL Translator / Pop-up window
command=”C:\Program Files\Zero Install\0install-win.exe” run –no-wait https://appdownload.deepl.com/windows/0install/deepl.xml
… opens the pop-up window of DeepL.
The installation of DeepL has been carried out in this path:
C:\Program Files\DeepLFürWindows\
I don’t know how to combine this with this search query:
https://www.deepl.com/translator/m/translate#auto/de/%s
Several attempts were unsuccessful.
For me, the Deepl window opens after Ctrl + C C.
_________________________________
Windows 11 Pro (x64) Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.2861)
Hello Michael
After restarting the computer, the dimensions were adopted. Now everything works as desired!!!
Many thanks for your support
Hi, could you please add a feature that can extract the entire text content of a window, a specific region of the screen, or even the full text displayed on the screen? I attempted this on Google Chrome Live Captions, but it only provides the text of a single line. I am looking to extract the entire text within the window.
+ Thank you for creating such a great application that is lightweight and efficient.
This was brought up a couple of times before. Right now that’s not possible with Textify. See the discussion here:
https://github.com/m417z/Textify/issues/20
Also, this tip of using Textify together with Ditto might be helpful.
2mostafa,
have a look on
Text Grab: https://github.com/TheJoeFin/Text-Grab
with Tesseract (please see “Text Grab Settings”).
Can you make it install for all users by default, or at least make it a radio box in the installer?
It’s not a common request, so it’s not a priority. Maybe one day…
Hi!
Firstly, thanks much for a great program. Much appreciated.
I’ve been using it on Windows 7 successfully and today I tried it on Linux Mint 20.3 (Wine 9.7 devel) but did not succeed. Is it possible to run Textify on Linux under Wine?
Hi, I didn’t try it. Pull requests to make it work are welcome.
First of all, thanks for this amazing tool!
It has been working working right for me until today. Now, I just receive “Input capture window” everytime I try to use it.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!!
Hi, you’re welcome, I’m glad that you like Textify 🙂
My guess is that you’re using a remote desktop tool, and running Textify on the host computer instead of the guest.
Indeed, I am using RDP.
The issue seems to have arisen after installing textify on my local computer (until recently, I only had it on my remote computer).
I have stopped textify on my local machine and now is working right on the remote computer.
Thanks for the hint!!!
Great. Of course, you can have both running and just configure different mouse/keyboard shortcuts for both.
Now that I think of it, you can also exclude the RDP process (probably mstsc.exe) in the config, under
[exclude].I will give it a go. Thanks Michael!!!
You are right. I have excluded mstsc.exe and everything works as expected now.
Thanks again!!!
Good afternoon.
I came across your program on the Internet, amazing functionality, very useful. But I have one problem with the program, namely it does not work in Active Directory Users and Computers. Nothing happens when pressing hotkeys. I guess Textify doesn’t work in AD? It’s a shame because I was looking for a similar program specifically for AD.
Hi Nikolay,
If Active Directory Users and Computers runs as administrator, you might need to run Textify as administrator as well.
Generally, Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
After reading the previous comments, I immediately tried to run textify as an administrator, but unfortunately this did not help. As for inspect, it works, provided that it is run as an administrator and displays all the necessary information.
I tried to reinstall textify, but already ran setup as an administrator, and subsequently the program itself as an administrator. Oh miracle it worked. Thank you very much, this will make my job a lot easier.
Chrome Legacy Window prompt appears when copying textify. How to solve it? Thanks
Which program? If it’s a browser, try going to
chrome://accessibilityand enabling accessibility. If it’s an electron app, try running it with--force-renderer-accessibility.Generally, Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
A god send
Love you, bro. This little gadget, paired with some office automation tools, has been a real lifesaver for me.Thanks to it, my whole process was able to get up and running.
It’d be honestly just super useful if you made Textify work with the text in Autorun by Sysinterals (now bought out by MS.) I have a hundred entries and have to take snippets of the test, run those through through ORC, which takes hours;. If I could just invoke the hotkey to figure what “PPC-Sierra Starport Driver” or “amdpps.sys”is, I could make informed decisions about how what I need and don’t. O believe it uses plain old WDF. Thank you!
It works with Autoruns, but Autoruns runs as administrator, Textify must run as administrator as well.
I have it running as admin with Task Scheduler on startup “Run with highest privileges”. I also tried running as SYSTEM using nircmd runassystem.
No matter where I click in the autoruns window it just returns “Autoruns – Sysinternals: http://www.sysinternals.com”
The only place it does not return that is in the bottom toolbar. In the list of startup items, it returns the generic text.
For example with an item selected, at the very bottom (the gray area) Textifying the selected program name exe will show “C:\Program Files (x86)\AquaSnap\AquaSnap.Daemon.exe”, which is better than I realized initially, but not really helpful for a quick search with a power tool took like Voidtools Everything.
If a tooltip is up on the list, it returns “balloon”, which is also moot.
OK, so it’s not that it doesn’t work. Textify relies on UI Automation. Unfortunately, not all text can be grabbed this way, depending the way the target 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.
PS. If you have the time to make a list of your favorite power tools, I’d be a huge fan! You clearly are at the top of your game and know Windows inside and out. I’ve been using it since ’95 but still find amazing tools here and there.
hi can you provide a link to older versions? the newer ones do not seem to work on windows 7
Hi, works fine here, what doesn’t work for you? Are you getting an error message?
Dear Ramen,
After successfully extracting the text, a popup window and shortcut buttons appear, allowing access to Google Search, Google Translate, and so on. I would like to know how I can configure these buttons to open directly in the browser, rather than launching a separate window.
Thank you for your help!
Since English is not my first language, the above content was translated by AI. If there are any parts that are unclear or difficult to understand, please feel free to communicate with me further. Thank you.
Hi, you can click on “More settings”, and then remove the
popup-web!part from the command for each web button.