TextShot

Capture any screen region → extract text via OCR → copy to clipboard instantly.

TextShot is a desktop OCR application for Linux that lets you select any area on your screen, run OCR (Tesseract), and copy the recognized text to your clipboard — all with a single click or keyboard shortcut.

Built with Tauri v2, React, TypeScript, and Rust.

Features

• Screen capture — Select any region on screen using GNOME's interactive area selection (portal API)
• OCR — Extract text via Tesseract (supports multiple languages like English, Arabic, French, etc.)
• Auto-copy — Copies recognized text to clipboard automatically
• Customizable — OCR language, keyboard shortcuts, auto-copy toggle, confidence display
• System tray — Quick access to capture without focusing the app (requires AppIndicator extension)
• Keyboard shortcuts — Configurable in-app shortcuts for faster workflow

Requirements

• Linux (tested on Ubuntu 24.04 / GNOME Wayland; also works on other distros with xdg-desktop-portal)
• Tesseract OCR with language packs — installed automatically with the .deb package below. For AppImage or manual install:

  sudo apt install tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng tesseract-ocr-ara tesseract-ocr-fra tesseract-ocr-spa

• GNOME AppIndicator extension (for system tray icon on GNOME) — usually pre-installed on Ubuntu

Install

Option 1: Download the latest release

Download the .deb or .AppImage from the Releases page.

Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

sudo apt install ./textshot_0.1.2_amd64.deb

Any Linux (AppImage — no install needed):

chmod +x textshot_0.1.2_amd64.AppImage
./textshot_0.1.2_amd64.AppImage

Note: Using apt install (not dpkg -i) automatically pulls in Tesseract and all required language packs.

Option 2: Build from source

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Rust toolchain
• Tauri system dependencies
• libayatana-appindicator3-dev (for system tray bundling):

  sudo apt install libayatana-appindicator3-dev

Build

git clone https://github.com/MahmoudKSultan/textshot.git
cd textshot
npm install
npx tauri build

Output:

• src-tauri/target/release/bundle/deb/textshot_0.1.0_amd64.deb
• src-tauri/target/release/bundle/appimage/textshot_0.1.0_amd64.AppImage

Development

npm install
npm run tauri dev

Starts Vite dev server with hot-reload.

Usage

1. Launch TextShot
2. Click Capture Screen & OCR (or press Ctrl+Enter)
3. Select a region on screen using the crosshair
4. The recognized text appears in the app and is copied to your clipboard

System Tray

When running, TextShot adds a tray icon in the top bar (requires the AppIndicator extension on GNOME). Right-click for:

Menu option	Action
Take Screenshot	Capture without focusing the app
Show Window	Bring TextShot to front
Quit	Exit the application

Settings

Click the gear icon ⚙ in the top-right corner to customize:

Setting	Description
OCR Language	Tesseract language code (e.g. eng, ara, fra)
Auto-copy	Automatically copy OCR result to clipboard
Show Confidence	Display OCR confidence score
Save Screenshot	Save screenshot image to disk

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Enter	Capture screen & run OCR
Escape	Close settings panel

Shortcuts are customizable in the Settings panel.

Desktop Compatibility

TextShot uses xdg-desktop-portal for screen capture, which integrates with your desktop's screenshot UI.

Desktop	Status
GNOME (Ubuntu, Fedora)	✅ Full support — interactive area selection via portal
KDE Plasma	✅ Should work — uses KDE's portal screenshot
Linux Mint (Cinnamon/MATE)	✅ Works — falls back to gnome-screenshot --area or mate-screenshot --area if the portal doesn't support interactive selection.
XFCE	✅ Works — falls back to xfce4-screenshooter --region if the portal doesn't support interactive selection.
Other desktops	⚠️ Requires gnome-screenshot, mate-screenshot, or xfce4-screenshooter for interactive selection. Falls back to non-interactive portal capture if none are available.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Desktop framework	Tauri v2
Frontend	React, TypeScript, TailwindCSS, Vite
OCR engine	Tesseract (via leptess)
Screen capture	ashpd (xdg-desktop-portal)
Clipboard	tauri-plugin-clipboard-manager
System tray	Tauri tray-icon (libappindicator / libayatana)

Roadmap

• App screenshot in README
• Flatpak / Snap package
• Auto-start on login
• OCR history
• Multi-monitor support
• Windows / macOS support

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues, submit PRs, or suggest features.

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.