> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.visualyze.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.visualyze.ai/rpa-studio/automation/vision/run-ocr-on-screen.md).

# Run OCR on Screen

Performs OCR on the screen.

This activity is used to perform OCR on a user-specified screen area.

### Area Settings

* **UI Element Selector:** [`DesktopElement Argument`](/getting-started/rpa-studio/arguments.md#types-of-arguments)\
  Select a UI Element or Window on the screen. Either the **Desktop Area** or the **UI Element Selector** properties should have input values that specify the area in which the specified image may appear.
* **Desktop Area:**\
  Specify an area (x,y,width,height) in Desktop. Either the **Desktop Area** or the **UI Element Selector** properties should have input values that specify the area in which the specified image may appear. Units in pixels.

### Configure

* **Mode:**\
  Specifies the mode. The available options are:
  * `Auto` - If selected, the activity will take a screenshot of the topmost window.
  * `TopMostWindow` - If selected, the activity will either use the UI Element Selector or Desktop Area Rectangle to take the screenshot.

#### OCR Options

* **Crop Region:**\
  Specifies the region on the document to apply the OCR.
* **Intermediate Save Path:**\
  Specifies the location where intermediate files are stored. If not specified files will be stored in the Windows Temp folder.
* **Language:**\
  Specifies the text language present in the document.
* **Profile:**\
  Specifies a set of optimized preprocessing steps for a given task. By default, the value is set to SceenScrape.
* **Save Intermediate Files?:**\
  If set to **True** all intermediate images created during preprocessing will be saved to disk.
* **Timeout:**\
  Specifies the timeout in milliseconds to wait for the OCR operation to complete.

#### Timeout

Specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to wait until the specified element is found. By default, the value is set to 1000 milliseconds (10 sec)

### Output

* **Extracted Text:** [`String Variable`](/getting-started/rpa-studio/variables/user-defined-variables-1.md#string)\
  Specify a variable name that stores the extracted text from the screen.