OK, so it is reading text and not images which might be produced by the Print Screen image thingy? It also sounds like it would not be a PDF type of converter. Does that sound right? I remember writing a program, many, many years ago that read what then was called the Screen Buffer and messing with it but that would not enable picture thingys like produced by the Print Screen key on my keyboard nor the PDF image files. Just curious because OCR was mentioned and I was looking at using OCR or something to transcribe guitar notation some time ago.
Rick USA----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "RicksPlace" <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2010 7:28 AM Subject: Re: Introducing GrabText app and financing problem
Hi Rick,It reads all text in application windows, similar to reviewing the off screen model of a screen reader using its mouse pointer mode. I think it is more reliable than most off screen models, however, because it extracts the text in real time based on an analysis of what fonts were used in drawing the text. Usually, it would not be needed if one is interacting with an application using a screen reader. It may be useful,however, for windows that a screen reader is having trouble accessing, or if one wants a convenient way of storing text snapshots of windows.Jamal On 3/27/2010 7:08 AM, RicksPlace wrote:Hi Jamal: Is this a program that allows for an application to read, for example, application Windows like in Windoweyes? Or, does it facillitate the reading of some file created using the Print Screen key? Just curious since I have been following Donnald's thread some and wonder if it intersects what you have worked on in the past. Rick USA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx> To: <ProgrammingBlind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <Program-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 6:33 PM Subject: Introducing GrabText app and financing problemNow available at http://EmpowermentZone.com/gtsetup.exe Thanks go to Donald Marang for getting me interested in the topic of screen OCR. My searches did not find a satisfactory free solution (Google Tesseract, for example, does poorly on screen images). I did find and compare several commercial OCR libraries. Typically, an individual license costs in the hundreds of dollars, and a developer license in the thousands -- often, with royalties charged for each distributed program. I did find what seems like a worthwhile solution: Text Grab SDK by Renovation Software. Based on this library, GrabText can conveniently extract and gather text from almost any application windows. An individual license for the COM server library is $29 and a single developer license is $699. If you want to consider contributing to a way of making GrabText freely available, read about the financing issue in the initial documentation, pasted below. Source code is in the GrabText.cs file in the GrabText program folder. Jamal [Initial documentation] GrabText Beta 0.6 March 26, 2010 Copyright 2010 by Jamal Mazrui GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Description GrabText is a command-line utility and dialog interface for grabbing text from the screen. The command-line syntax is GrabText.exe SourceArea TargetOutput UserName LicenseKey The first parameter specifies the area of the screen to serve as the source of text. The choices are ActiveWindow, FocusControl, CaretClip, MouseClip, EveryArea, and PickWindow. Capitalization does not matter. ActiveWindow is the most common choice, referring to the top-level window that is currently active. FocusControl refers to the control within that window that has focus. CaretClip or MouseClip refer to the string of text at the caret or mouse position, respectively. EveryArea combines the previous four areas into a longer string. PickWindow presents a list of top-level windows from which to choose. The second parameter specifies what to do with the text: Voice (say it), MessageBox (display in a standard message box), Clipboard (append to the clipboard), or File (append to a file). The Voice, Clipboard, and File options are On by default. The default file name is GrabTextOutput.txt, stored in the GrabText data directory, which is located at %AppData%\GrabText A configuration file, GrabText.ini, is also stored there. If a parameter is not specified on the command line, its value is retrieved from the configuration file, if present. The UserName and LicenseKey parameters are needed because GrabText depends on a commercial programming library called Text Grab SDK (software development kit), available from the web site http://renovation-software.com At the time of this writing, a single license costs $29. The trial version, distributed with GrabText, lasts for two weeks. Rather than buying an individual license, consider contributing to the cost of a developer license for the author of GrabText. This costs $699. It would enable GrabText to be fully and freely functional for any user. Note that GrabText, itself, is open source, and no compensation is sought for its use. If anyone is able to set up a PayPal or equivalent site to be transparent about any money collection effort, please say so. The default hotkey for invoking GrabText is Alt+Control+F8. This may be changed by modifying properties of the GrabText shortcut on the Windows desktop. The installer, gtsetup.exe, creates a GrabText program group in the Windows Start Menu, with options for launching the program, uninstalling it, or reading this ddocumentation. The default program folder is C:\Program Files\GrabText GrabText needs to be invoked with a global hotkey so you can extract from the current application window. Once launched, the program remains in memory until you explicitly terminate it. Subsequent invocations of the GrabText hotkey activate the current program in memory rather than loading additional copies. There is another desktop shortcut called GrabTextOptions. By default, it uses the same hotkey with a Shift added: Alt+Control+Shift+F8. It may be invoked either with its hotkey or from the desktop. This invokes a dialog with configuration options and utilities. The UserName and LicenseKey may be specified. You may change settings for the screen area or output type. You may inspect or clear the clipboard. You may pick an output file, open it, remove it, or browse the GrabText data folder. You may restore default settings, or present this documentation in your web browser. You may quit running GrabText. All controls of the dialog have unique Alt+Letter combinations -- except for the Cancel button, which is activated directly with the Escape key. I welcome feedback, which helps GrabText improve over time. Jamal Mazrui jamal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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