macOS Monterey: How to use Live Text and Visual Search

Live Text, Where Live Text, is a new feature of macOS Monterey which allows you to use the text of an image via OCR. Here’s a look at how live text works on Mac, using the public beta on macOS Monterey.

What is live text?

It is a very useful feature. If you’ve been to a meeting or conference before, you might have taken a photo of a whiteboard filled with written information. Now you can select the text from the photo, copy it, and then paste it into a document. Live Text recognizes text.

There are many ways to use the functionality of Live Text, and it is a production tool that saves time. This feature is also available in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Since you probably use the cameras on these devices often, you can use Live Text on your iPhone and iPad more often and more easily than on your Mac. But it happens on macOS Monterey this fall and works in apps Photos, Safari, Quick Look and the function of screenshot.

Using Live Text in Photos, Quick Look, and Safari

The Live Text feature in Photos, Safari, and Quick Look works the same. When viewing an image, move your cursor over the text and the text selection tool appears. You can then select the text, copy it, and then paste it into a document.

Live Text does a very good job with its character recognition. Live text is even able to recognize accents. You may also notice that there are a few marks in the corner of the sign before the “S” of “SOY”. Live Text interpreted this as a bullet (from a bullet list). In addition, the live text translated the ”O“ of “BASURERO” into ”D“. However, it’s hard to fault it since, in the picture, the “O” looks like a “D”.

Using Search

When the text is selected, you can right click, bring up the context menu, and you have the option to Find Text.

Three search options are available:

• Knowledge of Siri, which displays information based on the context of the selected text;