What is included in ABBYY Screenshot Reader?

Screen capture OCR – Grabs any on-screen area and reads its text.
Editable text output – Converts captured text without manual retyping.
Table extraction – Turns on-screen tables into editable Excel worksheets.
Multiple save formats – Saves to DOC, RTF, XLS, CSV, TXT, ODT.
Core Capacity – Recognizes text in 180+ languages, 40+ with dictionaries.
Important – Windows-only tool; no macOS or mobile version.

What are the main benefits of ABBYY Screenshot Reader?

ABBYY Screenshot Reader is a Windows OCR utility that captures any region of the screen and converts the text or tables inside it into editable content. It pulls usable text from sources you normally cannot select, such as image files, PDFs, presentations, and copy-protected web pages.

No retyping – Reuse text from images and locked PDFs.
Direct to Office – Sends recognized text straight into Word or Excel.
Table to Excel – Rebuilds on-screen tables as editable spreadsheets.
Fast support captures – Snap error messages to attach to tickets.
180+ languages – Reads multilingual and mixed-script screen text.
Standalone and light – Runs as a small dedicated capture app.

What does ABBYY Screenshot Reader do?

It captures a selected area of your screen and uses ABBYY OCR to turn the text or table inside it into editable content. It works on sources you usually cannot copy from, including image files, scanned PDFs, presentations, file menus, and copy-protected web pages. The result can be pasted into an open application, copied to the clipboard, or saved as DOC, RTF, XLS, CSV, TXT, or ODT, with JPEG, PNG, or BMP available for plain images. In practice you use it to lift a paragraph or a price table off a page without retyping. It reads what is currently on screen, not whole multi-page documents.

Which file types and sources can ABBYY Screenshot Reader read from?

It reads text and tables from anything visible on screen, including image files, PDFs, presentations, file menus, and web pages that block selection. It recognizes more than 180 languages, over 40 of them with dictionary support for cleaner results. Recognized text saves to DOC, RTF, XLS, CSV, TXT, or ODT, while captured images save to JPEG, PNG, or BMP. To push text directly into Word or Excel, those programs must already be installed on the PC. This makes it useful when the only copy of the information is an uneditable graphic.

How is ABBYY Screenshot Reader different from ABBYY FineReader PDF?

Screenshot Reader recognizes one selected on-screen area at a time, while ABBYY FineReader PDF is the full suite that scans, edits, converts, and compares complete multi-page PDFs. Screenshot Reader is actually built into FineReader PDF as a tool, but it is also sold on its own as a small standalone application. Choose Screenshot Reader for quick text and table grabs from the screen; choose FineReader PDF when you need batch OCR, PDF editing, or document comparison. Screenshot Reader has no batch processing and no PDF editing, so it is not a replacement for the full product.

What are the main limitations of ABBYY Screenshot Reader?

It is a Windows-only tool with no macOS, Linux, or mobile version, and it processes one selected screen area at a time rather than entire documents. There is no batch OCR, no PDF editing, and no document comparison, since those features belong to ABBYY FineReader PDF. Recognition accuracy depends on the on-screen image, so very small or low-resolution text is read less reliably than crisp text. For occasional snippet capture this is rarely a problem, but high-volume document digitization needs the full FineReader product.

Who is ABBYY Screenshot Reader best for?

It fits people who repeatedly need to lift text or tables out of uncopyable sources, such as support staff capturing error dialogs for a ticket, students pulling quotes from locked PDFs, or analysts copying a web table straight into Excel. Because it recognizes 180+ languages and exports directly to Excel and CSV, it handles multilingual content and tabular data that a plain screenshot tool cannot. The specific problem it solves is turning "I can see the text but can't select it" into editable data in a couple of clicks. It is a poor fit for anyone who needs to OCR stacks of full documents in one pass.

Frequently asked questions about ABBYY Screenshot Reader

Do I need Microsoft Word or Excel installed to use it?

No, for basic use. You can capture and save results to RTF, TXT, ODT, JPEG, PNG, or BMP without Office installed. However, sending recognized text directly into Word or Excel requires those applications to already be present on the computer.

Does ABBYY Screenshot Reader run on Windows Server?

Yes. It is supported on Windows Server 2016, 2012, 2012 R2, and 2008 R2, in addition to Windows 11 through Windows 7. There is no macOS, Linux, iOS, or Android version, so it remains a Windows-only utility.