Textify for Mac: user guide

Open images and PDFs

Textify opens PDF files and images (JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF and the other formats macOS opens), one or many at a time:

• Click Select image(s) or PDF(s), or press ⌘O.
• Drop files on the Textify window or on its icon in the Dock.
• In the Finder, Control-click a file and choose Open With › Textify.
• Paste an image or a screenshot with ⌘V, including one copied on your iPhone or iPad (Universal Clipboard).
• Choose File › Import from iPhone/iPad, or click the iPhone button, then Take Photo or Scan Documents to use your iPhone or iPad as a camera or a scanner (Continuity Camera).

When you open several files, or a PDF with several pages, Textify puts all the pages in one document, and the label above the image shows which page you see. To fix a page scanned sideways, use Rotate image 90° left or right in the File menu, or rotate all the images at once.

Recognize the text

1. Choose the OCR language

   Click Settings… and choose the language of the document under OCR Language: Automatic (macOS 13 and later), a language, or Other for codes and numbers. Which languages are available.

2. Start the recognition

   Click Recognize text (OCR) or press ⌘R. Textify shows its progress, then the text appears in the Text preview.

3. Check the result

   Switch between Formatted (one line per line of the page) and Raw text (continuous text) above the preview, and press ⌘F to search the text.

OCR zones

On pages with columns, boxes or captions, the lines of different blocks can get mixed. OCR zones tell Textify what to read, and in which order.

1. Add a zone

   In the OCR zones bar above the image, click the + button, then draw a rectangle around the first block of text, such as a title or the first column.

2. Add the next zones in reading order

   Repeat for each block. The zones are numbered: Textify reads them in that order. The undo button removes the last zone, and the × button removes them all.

3. Recognize the text

   Click Recognize text (OCR). The text of the zones comes out in your order. When you save a PDF, the text outside the zones is added to it too.

Rotate the image before drawing zones: rotating an image removes its zones. If the OCR zones bar covers the text, use its Move toolbar button.

Edit the recognized text

After the recognition, click Edit text or press ⌘E to correct the text line by line. The lines you change are colored; to undo a change, Control-click the line and choose Revert. Your corrections are used everywhere: in the copied text, in text files and in the invisible text of the PDF.

Image settings and file size

Click Settings… to choose how the pages of the PDF are saved. The line under the image sums up the current settings.

The estimated size of the PDF is shown under the text preview. The settings only change the saved file: the text is always recognized from the original image. With Colors, Original, Original and Off, a PDF keeps its original pages, with their vector text and drawings.

Save and copy

Click Save as… and choose a format, or use the File menu:

• PDF with text integrated (⌘D): a searchable PDF, with the text invisible over each page.
• Text file (.txt) (⌘T): the text with its line breaks.
• Text file (.txt) without formatting (⌘Y): the text as one continuous block.

To paste the text elsewhere, click Copy text or Copy text without formatting under the Text preview.

Preferences

Open them with ⌘, from the Textify menu.

• General: buy Textify PRO, Restore my PRO access, send feedback, and the terms and privacy policy.
• PDF Settings (PRO): the PDF print size, the physical size of the exported PDF files: A0 to A10, B0 to B10, C0 to C10, RA and SRA sizes, US Letter, US Legal, US Executive, Tabloid and more.
• File naming (PRO): turn on Enable automatic smart file naming and build a Filename pattern from your own text and tokens for the year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds. The default pattern gives names like 2026_10_29_OCR_by_Textify.
• Shortcuts: add the ready-made shortcuts for batch OCR from the Finder.
• Advanced: Force image orientation, for the rare PDFs whose pages come out turned the wrong way. Leave it off otherwise, as it can lower the image quality.

Keyboard shortcuts

Free version and Textify PRO

All the features work in the free version, with two differences: the PDFs you save get a diagonal “OCR by Textify on macOS” watermark, and copied or saved text ends with a short note about the free version. When you save a PDF, you can choose Continue with watermark, or buy Textify PRO.

Textify PRO removes the watermark and the note, and unlocks the PDF print size and automatic file naming. It is an in-app purchase, as a yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase. On a new Mac, or after reinstalling Textify, open Preferences › General and click Restore my PRO access, with the same Apple Account. To stop the yearly subscription, follow Apple’s guide to cancel a subscription.

Contact support

Write to textify@isolid.be. To get a quick answer, mention your version of macOS and of Textify (Textify › About Textify), and attach the image or PDF that gives the problem if you can.