When someone texts you a photograph of a business card or a printed WiFi password, you usually have to stare at the image while manually retyping the data into a text message or a web browser. This manual transcription is tedious and highly prone to typos. You do not need to download third-party Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to solve this. Modern versions of macOS feature a deeply integrated neural network called “Live Text” that is natively embedded directly inside the Preview application, allowing you to highlight and copy text out of a photograph exactly as if you were reading a Word document.
How Live Text Works in Preview
The Live Text engine is completely invisible. There are no special buttons to click or modes to activate. The moment you open an image file, the Apple Silicon neural engine silently scans the photograph in the background, identifying anything that looks like human typography.
- Double-click any photograph (JPEG, PNG, or HEIC) containing visible text to open it in Preview.
- Hover your mouse cursor directly over the text inside the image. (Notice that your cursor instantly changes from an arrow pointer to a standard text-selection “I-beam” cursor).
- Click and drag your mouse across the text inside the photograph. The text will highlight in blue, proving that the system has recognized it as data.
- Press Command + C to copy the highlighted text to your clipboard.
You can now open Notes, Messages, or a Word document and press Command + V to paste the extracted data. The neural engine is incredibly robust; it can accurately read stylized fonts, handwriting, and text printed on an extreme angle or perspective.
Quick Actions for Phone Numbers and URLs
Live Text does more than just copy text; it actually parses the data to determine its context. If the neural engine detects that a string of numbers is formatted like a phone number, or that a string of text begins with www., it injects interactive hyperlinks directly into the photograph.
If you open a photo of a business card in Preview, hover your mouse over the printed phone number. A small, subtle bounding box will appear around the number, accompanied by a tiny downward-facing arrow.
If you click that arrow, a macOS quick-action menu will appear, allowing you to instantly Call the number using your iPhone (via Continuity), send an iMessage, or add the person to your Contacts app, all without ever typing a single digit manually.