Text Extractor

A GNOME Shell extension that extracts text from any area of your screen using OCR (Optical Character Recognition).

Features

• 📸 Native Screenshot UI: Uses GNOME's built-in screenshot selection
• 🔍 Automatic OCR: Extracts text and copies to clipboard automatically
• 🌍 Multi-language Support: 14+ OCR languages supported
• ⌨️ Customizable Shortcut: Default Super+Shift+T
• 💾 Optional Screenshot Storage: Save or auto-delete after OCR
• 🔔 Notifications: Optional success/error notifications

How It Works

1. Press Super+Shift+T
2. Select screen area using native GNOME screenshot UI
3. Text is extracted via OCR and automatically copied to clipboard
4. Done! Paste anywhere with Ctrl+V

Requirements

• GNOME Shell 48 or 49
• Tesseract OCR
• Python 3 with pytesseract and Pillow

Installation

1. Install Extension

git clone https://github.com/Aditya190803/TextExtractor.git
cd TextExtractor
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

The installation script will:

• Install Tesseract OCR and Python dependencies automatically on Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch
• Install the extension to ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/
• Install the OCR helper script automatically and make it available to GNOME Shell
• Compile GSettings schemas

If your distribution is not supported by the installer, install tesseract, python3, python3-pip, and zip manually first, then run ./install.sh again.

2. Enable Extension

# On X11: Press Alt+F2, type 'r', press Enter
# On Wayland: Log out and log back in

gnome-extensions enable text-extractor@aditya190803

Or use GNOME Extensions app / Extension Manager.

Configuration

Open preferences via:

• GNOME Extensions app → Text Extractor → ⚙️
• Or: gnome-extensions prefs text-extractor@aditya190803

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
Shortcut	Keyboard shortcut to trigger	Super+Shift+T
OCR Language	Language for text recognition	English (eng)
Show Notifications	Display result notifications	✓ Enabled
Save Screenshots	Keep screenshots after OCR	✓ Enabled

Screenshots are saved to ~/Pictures/Screenshots/TextExtractor/

Supported Languages

Language	Code	Language	Code
English	eng	Russian	rus
German	deu	Japanese	jpn
French	fra	Chinese (Simplified)	chi_sim
Spanish	spa	Chinese (Traditional)	chi_tra
Italian	ita	Korean	kor
Portuguese	por	Arabic	ara
Dutch	nld	Hindi	hin

Install additional languages:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr-<code>

# Fedora  
sudo dnf install tesseract-langpack-<code>

# Arch
sudo pacman -S tesseract-data-<code>

Troubleshooting

No text detected

• Ensure image has clear, readable text
• Try selecting a larger area
• Check OCR language setting

Extension not working

# Check if installed
ls ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/text-extractor@aditya190803/

# Check logs
journalctl -f -o cat /usr/bin/gnome-shell

Shortcut conflicts

Reset to default in extension preferences.

Uninstallation

./uninstall.sh

Or manually:

gnome-extensions disable text-extractor@aditya190803
rm -rf ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/text-extractor@aditya190803
rm ~/.local/bin/text-extractor-ocr

Project Structure

TextExtractor/
├── build/                # Extension source files
│   ├── extension.js      # Main extension logic
│   ├── prefs.js          # Preferences UI
│   ├── ocr_helper.py     # Python OCR script (installed to ~/.local/bin)
│   ├── stylesheet.css    # Styles
│   ├── metadata.json     # Extension metadata
│   └── schemas/          # GSettings schema
├── install.sh            # Installation script
├── uninstall.sh          # Uninstallation script
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

Note: The ocr_helper.py script is installed as a system-wide dependency at ~/.local/bin/text-extractor-ocr and is not bundled with the extension package, following EGO Review Guidelines.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0

Credits

• Tesseract OCR
• pytesseract
• GNOME Shell Extension API

Author

Aditya - GitHub

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