Screenshot the text and open the picture in Preview, where Live Text lets you select it. For a PDF, Preview has its own checklist. If you do not want to copy anything and only need to read it, LeafyApp reads the text where it sits.
Screenshot it, then select it
Text you cannot select is usually a picture of text. The quickest built-in fix is to take a screenshot with ⇧⌘4, open the file in Preview, and hold the pointer over the words. Apple's Live Text guide for Preview describes it, and the text can then be copied, looked up or translated. It is free and needs nothing installed.
It costs a screenshot and a window switch every time, and it is not available in every region or language, according to Apple. If the pointer stays an arrow even then, see Live Text not working on a Mac.
If it is a PDF
Apple has a page for this, If you can't select or copy text in a PDF. It lists two causes. The Text Selection tool may not be chosen, so pick it from the Tools menu. Or the PDF may need a password before you can select or copy, which you enter in the Encryption Inspector.
A third cause is a scan. The pages are photographs and there is no text underneath. Preview can write recognised text into the file with File, Export, Embed Text on macOS 14 or later, which how to OCR a PDF on a Mac walks through.
Where those fixes run out
Some text is never going to be a file you can screenshot sensibly. A game menu. An installer or an app that draws everything as images. A remote desktop window, where the words only exist as pixels on your side. A shared screen in a call. A page in a viewer that blocks selection. Any of it can be screenshotted, but you are doing it dozens of times a day.
Apps like TextSniper and TRex exist for this. They copy text off the screen, and the alternatives comparison covers them and the free options.
Read it in place with ⌥A
LeafyApp is not a copy tool, it reads. Press ⌥A in any app, drag a box over the text, and macOS text recognition reads that patch of screen. You get the word explained for the sentence it is in, and a separate shortcut translates the boxed passage. No screenshot file is made, and you never leave the window.
Words are saved with their sentence, source and date, so what you looked up in a game last week is still there. This is the same approach as the screen translator, aimed at the case where you do not want to copy the text at all.
It is not a tool for getting around protection. On a locked PDF it lets you read what is on the page, nothing more, and it does not remove the lock or produce a copy of the file.
Real cases
Games, where dialogue and item descriptions are painted onto the screen. Scanned PDFs and papers that are just photographs. Image-only interfaces. Remote desktop sessions and screen shares. And electronic medical records: a third-year medical student uses LeafyApp on them for the abbreviations and drug names a record shows, without leaving the chart. The look-up page covers the plain-text version of the same job.
The picture is read on your Mac and thrown away. Only the word and its sentence go out so the AI can explain it, with nothing attached that says who you are, and your library stays on the Mac. See the privacy page.
Questions people ask
Why can't I select text on my Mac? The text is probably part of a picture, like a scan, a screenshot, a game screen or a remote desktop window. In a PDF it may also be the Text Selection tool being off or a password being required.
How do I copy text from a game on a Mac? Take a screenshot, open it in Preview and select the text with Live Text. Or use LeafyApp to box the text with ⌥A and read it in place.
How do I copy text from a protected PDF? Apple's Preview help says a PDF may need a password before you can select or copy text. LeafyApp does not remove protection, but it can read what is on the page in front of you.
Can I copy text from my screen on a Mac? Yes, with a screenshot and Live Text in Preview, or with an OCR app like TextSniper or TRex that copies directly from the screen.
Stop screenshotting. Read it where it is.
Free while LeafyApp is in beta. One download, macOS 14 and up.
Preview, Live Text, TextSniper and TRex are trademarks of their respective owners. LeafyApp is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, and the names are used here only to describe compatibility and for comparison.