The word you cannot select

Scanned pages, subtitles burnt into the picture, screenshots, game menus. Half of what people actually read on a Mac is not selectable text, and every lookup tool that starts with "select the word" stops right there.

What macOS already gives you

Live Text is built in and worth knowing about. Open an image in Preview, Quick Look or Photos, hover over the writing, and if the pointer turns into a text cursor you can select and copy it. Safari does it on images in a page. For copying an address off a photo it is exactly right, and it costs nothing.

Its limits show up quickly. It only appears in apps that opted into it, so a video player, a game, or a PDF that blocks selection gives you nothing. And it hands you text, not a meaning: you still have to take that word somewhere else to find out what it says.

Reading the screen instead of the file

The other approach ignores what the app is willing to hand over and reads the pixels. Whatever is visible can be recognised, because at that point it is all just a picture. A protected PDF, a subtitle painted into the frame, a screenshot a friend sent you, a visual novel, a menu in a game.

In Leafy that is one shortcut. Press ⌥A, draw a box around the word, and the meaning appears where you were already looking. macOS does the text recognition, on your machine.

Keeping it, not just seeing it

A lookup you do not keep is a lookup you will do again. When Leafy reads a word off the screen it also keeps the line around it, so the entry in your library is the word plus the sentence you met it in, not a bare headword you will fail to place in three days.

That is the part Live Text and most quick lookup tools skip, and it is the whole difference between a vocabulary list and a pile of words.

When it will not work

  • Text recognition needs legible text. Very small, low contrast or heavily stylised type gets missed.
  • Handwriting is not supported.
  • Ten languages so far: Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Thai.
  • It needs screen recording permission, because reading the screen is literally what it does. macOS asks once.
  • macOS 14 or later.

How do I copy text from an image on a Mac?

macOS has Live Text built in. Open the image in Preview or Quick Look, hover over the text, and if the pointer turns into a text cursor you can select and copy it like anything else. It works in Photos and Safari too. This is free and already on your Mac, and for a one off copy it is the right answer.

Why does Live Text sometimes do nothing?

It needs an app that opted into it. A video player showing burnt in subtitles, a game, a protected PDF that blocks selection, or an app drawing its own text will not offer it. Live Text also only hands you the text; it does not look the word up or keep it anywhere.

Can I look up a word in a scanned PDF?

Not by selecting it, because a scanned page is a picture with no text layer. Either run text recognition over the whole document first, or use something that reads the pixels on screen at the moment you ask. The second is faster if you only want the one word.

Does this work with subtitles while I watch?

Yes, if the tool reads the screen rather than the file. Pause on the line, box the word, and you get the meaning without hunting for a subtitle file. It also works on subtitles that are part of the picture, which no subtitle file would help with.

Where does the screenshot go?

With Leafy, nowhere. Text recognition runs on your Mac and the image stays there. Only the word itself is sent out, and only to get its explanation.