Windows PowerToys are already useful enough, and they’re about to get even better.

If you’re unsure as to what PowerToys is, now is a great time to get started with them. Details have appeared online about a new PowerToy that can grab text from images, and if it works well, it’ll likely become a powerful tool in your collection.

A New OCR PowerToy Is in the Works

The eagle-eyed BetaNews spotted the new toy in the wild after the PowerToys official GitHub page saw a new pull titled “Create new OCR PowerToy.” The description doesn’t waste words discussing what it does:

This PR introduces a new PowerToy to perform OCR anywhere on screen by selecting a rectangular region, clicking a word, or right-clicking an image file and selecting PowerOCR.

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, and it describes an app or service that can “read” text and transcribe it for you. There are plenty of free OCR apps out there that can do the job, but the quality of the transcription is what makes or breaks an OCR app.

The developer, TheJoeFin, commented that the tool isn’t quite ready yet. They state that “more that needs to be done to make this PowerToy ready for prime time” but they still encourage users to build the tool and give it a spin for themselves.

If you’re wondering what the fuss is about, PowerToys are optional Windows tools aimed at advanced users. They’re totally free to download, so be sure to check out how to do more in Windows with PowerToys for more information. They can do a lot of interesting things, like creating a color picker that lets you select any color on your screen.

A Potentially Essential PowerToy?

While PowerToys are usually aimed at advanced computer hobbyists, this one has the potential to become an essential tool in everyone’s toolkit. If Microsoft manages to create a power OCR tool with this PowerToy, it could be an indispensable companion for extracting text from images… and all for free.

Unfortunately, we can’t say for sure at this point whether it’ll be a hit or not, given how it’s still in the rough development phase. But this is one PowerToy that everyone, including regular users, should keep an eye on.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words… but OCR Can Help

PowerToys are usually for advanced users, but this one might be an essential tool if it comes out well. Let’s hope Microsoft knocks it out of the park with this PowerToy.