copy text on the screen as text?
in [CSharp]
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From: Cal Who on 20 Jan 2010 14:41 A long time ago I wrote a program that copied the screen. But that produced an image of the screen. I'm guessing that that is the best one can do but I would like to copy text on the screen as text (i.e. as a string) Do you know if that is possible? Or maybe, you know why that it is not possible - if so, of course, I'd like to know that. Thanks
From: j1mb0jay on 20 Jan 2010 15:08 Cal Who wrote: > A long time ago I wrote a program that copied the screen. > But that produced an image of the screen. > > I'm guessing that that is the best one can do but I would like to copy text > on the screen as text (i.e. as a string) > > Do you know if that is possible? > > Or maybe, you know why that it is not possible - if so, of course, I'd like > to know that. > > Thanks > > Hi as a thought you could capture the screen shot as an image as you mentioned that you have done before. You could then pass the image through an OCR SDK such as http://www.leadtools.com/sdk/ocr/default.htm to get the characters from the images. Hope this helps. j1mb0jay ################################################# http://www.dotnethelp.co.uk
From: Peter Duniho on 20 Jan 2010 15:20 Cal Who wrote: > A long time ago I wrote a program that copied the screen. > But that produced an image of the screen. > > I'm guessing that that is the best one can do but I would like to copy text > on the screen as text (i.e. as a string) > > Do you know if that is possible? Anything's possible. :) After you capture the image, you can use OCR techniques to convert to text. Depending on the target you are actually trying to capture, it's even possible you could hack your way into the process and retrieve the text data straight from the window or underlying data structures. The former isn't really even that much of a hack, depending on how much you know about the window hierarchy of the process, the specific OS version (Vista and Windows 7 have stronger cross-process security), and the data you're trying to get, because many windows will just give up their text contents when sent a simple window message (e.g. WM_GETTEXT, LB_GETTEXT, EM_GETTEXTEX, etc.) I guess the real question is, why are you trying to do this? One obvious application would be some sort of accessibility assistant. But there are already third-party applications out there to do that. Actually, speaking of that, Windows does have some kind of accessibility hooks that programs like that use. I don't know anything about the specifics, but it's possible you could make progress toward your goal using those. Pete
From: Cal Who on 20 Jan 2010 16:30 j1mb0jay wrote: > Cal Who wrote: >> A long time ago I wrote a program that copied the screen. >> But that produced an image of the screen. >> >> I'm guessing that that is the best one can do but I would like to >> copy text on the screen as text (i.e. as a string) >> >> Do you know if that is possible? >> >> Or maybe, you know why that it is not possible - if so, of course, >> I'd like to know that. >> >> Thanks >> >> > > Hi as a thought you could capture the screen shot as an image as you > mentioned that you have done before. You could then pass the image > through an OCR SDK such as > http://www.leadtools.com/sdk/ocr/default.htm to get the characters > from the images. > Hope this helps. > > j1mb0jay > > ################################################# > http://www.dotnethelp.co.uk Actually I tried OCR before I posted but the screen resolution is so that the image was not good enough. After your post I changed the screen to 800x600 and tried again. Used Photoshop to resample to 300 and then the OCR worked great. Thaks
From: Cal Who on 20 Jan 2010 16:38
Peter Duniho wrote: > Cal Who wrote: >> A long time ago I wrote a program that copied the screen. >> But that produced an image of the screen. >> >> I'm guessing that that is the best one can do but I would like to >> copy text on the screen as text (i.e. as a string) >> >> Do you know if that is possible? > > Anything's possible. :) > > After you capture the image, you can use OCR techniques to convert to > text. Depending on the target you are actually trying to capture, > it's even possible you could hack your way into the process and > retrieve the text data straight from the window or underlying data > structures. > The former isn't really even that much of a hack, depending on how > much you know about the window hierarchy of the process, the specific > OS version (Vista and Windows 7 have stronger cross-process > security), and the data you're trying to get, because many windows > will just give up their text contents when sent a simple window > message (e.g. WM_GETTEXT, LB_GETTEXT, EM_GETTEXTEX, etc.) > > I guess the real question is, why are you trying to do this? One > obvious application would be some sort of accessibility assistant. But > there are already third-party applications out there to do that. > > Actually, speaking of that, Windows does have some kind of > accessibility hooks that programs like that use. I don't know > anything about the specifics, but it's possible you could make > progress toward your goal using those. > > Pete I may try that just for fun. Do you think I should try code like we did before managed code came about (I still have my Petzold book). Do people still code the old windows api If not, can you point me to an example - anything - not necessarily related to my original post. What started this is I did a search for files and wanted to send the result list to someone but folders don't allow you to copy the displayed text. Thanks |