23/02/2026 - Spectacle now supports OCR natively, therefore archiving this repo.

Add quick OCR (text extraction) to screenshots you take with Spectacle.
In Spectacle select Extract or right click an image → Extract Text → the recognized text lands in your clipboard, with a desktop notification.

• 🖼️ Auto-resizes the image for better OCR accuracy
• 🧠 Tesseract OCR with multiple languages (eng by default)
• 📋 Copies result straight to your clipboard (Wayland wl-copy / X11 xclip)
• 🔔 Desktop notifications for success and errors
• 🧹 Cleans up temporary files automatically

• Tesseract OCR (with language data for the languages you use)
• ImageMagick (magick command)
• Clipboard tool
  • Wayland: wl-clipboard (uses wl-copy)
  • X11: xclip
• libnotify (notify-send)
• desktop-file-utils (to update the desktop database)

These are installed automatically by the setup script below.

1. Download the files with either git or wget.
2. cd into the folder
3. Run:

   bash setup.sh

4. The script will:
   • Detect your package manager and prompt you to install the required packages
   • Ask where to install ocr.sh (defaults to ~/.local/bin)
   • Create ~/.local/share/applications/spectacle-ocr.desktop
   • Update the desktop database

After installation, you’ll have a launcher named “Extract Text” registered for PNG images.

1. Install dependencies for your distro, e.g. Ubuntu/Debian:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install -y tesseract-ocr imagemagick wl-clipboard xclip libnotify-bin desktop-file-utils

   (Wayland users only need wl-clipboard; X11 users only need xclip.)

2. Copy ocr.sh somewhere in your $PATH and make it executable:

   install -Dm755 ./ocr.sh "$HOME/.local/bin/ocr.sh"

3. Create the desktop entry:

   mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
   cat > ~/.local/share/applications/spectacle-ocr.desktop <<'EOF'
   [Desktop Entry]
   Name=Extract Text
   Exec=sh -c "nohup $HOME/.local/bin/ocr.sh %f >/dev/null 2>&1 &"
   MimeType=image/png;
   Icon=scanner
   Terminal=false
   Type=Application
   Categories=Utility;
   StartupNotify=false
   EOF
   
   update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications || true

• Take a screenshot with Spectacle and click Export -> Extract Text.
• OR save the image and in your file manager, right-click the PNG → Open With → Extract Text.
  The text is copied to your clipboard and you’ll see a notification.

ocr.sh /path/to/image.png
# Result is copied to the clipboard; notification is shown.

• Languages: Change the LANG parameter at the top of the ocr.sh script to select the languages.
• Examples:
  • English only: LANG="eng"
  • English + German: LANG="eng+deu"
  • Add other Tesseract langs if installed (e.g., spa, fra, etc.).

• Wayland vs X11: The script prefers wl-copy (Wayland) and falls back to xclip (X11).
• ImageMagick policies: Some distros restrict certain operations via ImageMagick’s policy file. If you hit errors, check /etc/ImageMagick-*/policy.xml.
• Input formats: The .desktop entry registers for image/png. Extend MimeType if you want JPEG, etc.

rm -f ~/.local/share/applications/spectacle-ocr.desktop
update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications || true
rm -f ~/.local/bin/ocr.sh