With Apple's Live Text feature, you can capture and interact with text in images, photos, and even real-time camera captures.

It first started in iOS 15 and now in iOS 18, Live Text allows you to extract text from printed and handwritten sources, making it an incredibly useful tool for capturing everything from phone numbers and email addresses to product names or even handwriting.

Live Text on iPhone

How to Use iOS 18’s Live Text Feature to Extract

Live Text is the smart iPhone functionality you need to master. This enables your iPhone to detect and interact with the text within images, photos, or even in the live camera feed.

After a text has been detected, you can copy it, paste it, look up the text, or translate it as any other text. It is compatible with iPhones that are on iOS version 15 or higher and can process both typed sentences as well as those written by hand.

Whether you are working with a scanned business card, a note written by hand, or the inscription on the window of a store, the Live Text function helps to quickly save and work with necessary text.

How to Use Live Text in the Camera App

You could make great use of Live Text and how it can capture text straight from the camera of an iPhone to get the information you need as you are out and about, seeing something you would want to remember, like the title of a book or an address or the name of a product.

Capture Text Using the Camera Step

1. Open the Camera app on your iPhone and focus it on the text you would like to capture.
2. Once the camera has detected the text, a faint outline will appear around the text, and a Live Text button in the corner of the viewfinder.
3. Tap the Live Text button, and a pop-up will come up with the text inside.
4. Tap on the portion of the text you want to copy. If you want everything, tap "Select All."
5. After you select the text, tap "Copy." If it's a phone number or email, you will have options to dial or email directly.

Live Text in the camera app is an incredibly quick and convenient way to capture text from objects, signs, or documents around you without needing to take a photo or screenshot.

How to Capture Text from Photos in Your Library

If you have text in images within your photo library, you can still access and interact with it using Live Text. This is with photos you've taken in the past, such as screenshots or even photos of receipts and even whiteboards.

Steps to Take a Screenshot from Images

1. Launch the Photos app, and then tap on the image that contains text.
2. Once you find text inside an image, tap and hold on it. You will then notice that the text has been marked in blue.
3. Now you can choose any text you want to copy and then click the "Copy" button just as you do with other text.

Live Text also allows you to search for images with text in them using the Photos app search bar. This is great if you have photographed something important, such as a receipt, but forgotten when you took it.

Grab Text from Web Images in Safari

Live Text can also reach web pages to capture text from images using Safari. This is handy if you need to grab product information, text from ads, or any other image-based content that has text you can read.

How to Capture Text from Web Images

1. Open Safari and go to a webpage that has an image with text.
2. Long press the text in the image. Just like Photos, you will see blue highlights surrounding the text.
3. Tap the "Copy" button to copy the text highlighted.
4. This feature makes web surfing much more interactive, and it lets you just pull out useful information directly from images.

Other Live Text Features

• Translate Text: If you tap the captured text from a different language, it may be possible to immediately translate to your native language from that captured text by tapping "Translate".
• Additionally, you can tap "Look Up" to view information more about the text; like product information or dictionary definition.

Limitations of Live Text

While Live Text is incredibly useful, it does have some limitations. It only works with iPhones running iOS 15 or later, and its accuracy depends on the quality and legibility of the text in the image. Handwritten text can sometimes be tricky, so be sure to proofread the copied content.