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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Extracting Text with OCR
Power Automate
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Extracting Text with OCR

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Posted on by CU13081429-1 18
Good day everyone.

I have been struggling to use the Extract Text with ORC when trying to read Text on an Application using the Foreground option.

Here is what I am trying to read:




Please assist if there is another way to read text on a Foreground application in arears where there is no cursor, and I also cannot highlight the text and copy it.

Thanks, 
Nhlanhla
Categories:
Power Automate Desktop
I have the same question (0)
  • Verified answer
    eetuRobo Profile Picture
    eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    OCR can be bit unreliable. I recommend trying UI Automation actions first. Try using "Extract data from window" -action


    When trying to select the UI element if it doesn't recognize the text element then try with the MSAA capturing mode which is not the default one. That can sometimes work better with older legacy UI.



    If that doesn't work then with the OCR:
    Try to read the whole Foreground window and then using Parse text -action with regex to read the text after the survey type and the survey code

    So first use Extract text with OCR on the Foreground window (make sure the window is focused first)


    Then when the OcrText gives all the text from that window use regex to take only the words after "Survey" and "Survey type".


    For survey type regex: (?<=Survey Type\s+)\w+
    For survey regex: (?<=Survey\s+\d+\s+)\w+
  • Suggested answer
    CU13081429-1 Profile Picture
    CU13081429-1 18 on at
    Thank you for your suggestions, and they really helped me to play around more with the actions to get what I needed.
    So this is what I have done on tope of your advice/options.



    Thanks
    Nhlanhla

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