What I actually need is not ordinary text selection translation, but OCR from screenshots.
The ideal tool would grab text quickly from anything on screen—plain text, images, even video subtitles—no matter what language appears. Recognition is the main thing. Translation is a bonus if it works well.
I came across Pot, an open-source, free, cross-platform translation tool. It supports seven translation engines, including DeepL, Caiyun, and OpenAI, and it can also connect with Anki and the Eudic vocabulary notebook.
I did not dig into Pot in detail. My impression is that it works more like a plugin or depends on some external API or helper tool, because it needs other software to function:
- SnipDo (Windows)
- PopClip (MacOS)
- Starry (Linux)
That cross-platform setup is a plus.
For my own use, I am on Windows, so the relevant one is SnipDo.
Download links I found:
SnipDo.zip official download | latest version download | portable version download | app download - 123 cloud drive
SnipDo download - latest SnipDo download [global text copying tool] - PC download site
Then came the installation problem. It requires PowerShell. I assume that is because I was not installing it through the Microsoft Store, and this method seems mandatory.
In my case, the installation failed on Windows 10 LTSC.
I was already a bit concerned about installing through PowerShell in the first place, and then about how I would uninstall it later, especially since I had no idea whether SnipDo would even be useful. After testing the two downloaded versions, neither one installed successfully.
PowerShell是一种跨平台的脚本语言和命令行工具，它可以帮助开发人员和系统管理员自动化任务和管理操作系统。在云计算领域，PowerShell可以用于加快卸载速度，具体操作如下：
1. 使用PowerShell脚本卸载软件：通过编写PowerShell脚本，可以自动化卸载软件的过程，从而提高卸载速度。脚本可以使用命令行工具如`Get-WmiObject`和`Uninstall-WindowsFeature`来获取和卸载软件。
2. 批量卸载软件：PowerShell可以帮助批量卸载多个软件，节省时间和精力。通过编写循环脚本，可以遍历软件列表并逐个卸载。
3. 使用PowerShell命令行工具：PowerShell提供了丰富的命令行工具，可以直接在命令行中执行卸载操作。例如，使用`Get-WmiObject`命令获取安装的软件列表，然后使用`Uninstall-WindowsFeature`命令卸载指定的软件。
4. 利用PowerShell的并行处理能力：PowerShell支持并行处理，可以同时执行多个卸载任务，提高效率。通过使用`Start-Job`命令启动多个作业，可以并行地卸载多个软件。
5. 使用PowerShell的远程管理功能：PowerShell可以通过远程管理功能，远程卸载其他计算机上的软件。通过使用`Invoke-Command`命令，可以在远程计算机上执行卸载操作，从而加快卸载速度。
So yes, PowerShell is actually pretty strong when it comes to uninstalling things.
I used someone else's image here:
This whole detour started from looking for a practical way to do screenshot-based OCR and translation. A tool that only handles selected text is not really enough for that kind of use.