AALookup / Wiki
Read games, subtitles and screen text
Freeze the current display, recognize text, look up words and keep selected text or images.
Freeze the scene at the right moment
- Switch to the game, video, image or other source. Put the pointer on the display you want to capture.
- Press Cmd+Control+A on macOS or Ctrl+Alt+A on Windows to freeze that display. Starting from the app’s screen capture button allows time to switch back to the source.
- Wait for recognition. Some readable text can appear before all recognition finishes; a full-screen translation needs recognition to finish first.
- Point at a recognized word to look it up, or select a region to work with its text. Press Escape to leave the frozen screen when you finish.
Work with a selected region
Use the recognized-text area to check the selected text before copying or translating it. Recognition is not guaranteed to preserve punctuation, line order or stylized lettering. Correct what you can and reduce the selected area if it contains unrelated text.
The frozen screen also offers annotation and image output controls. Use these when you need to keep or share a marked passage. A copied or saved image is your own export and is separate from temporary translation history.
Know what the frozen screen contains
Only the captured display and its visible content are included. Freezing does not pause the source game or video, capture an entire scrolling document, or keep tracking later frames. A new scene needs a new capture.
macOS needs Screen Recording access for screen recognition. Windows needs an available recognition engine and appropriate language support. Very small text, animations, transparent overlays and protected content can still prevent reliable recognition.
Freezing, recognition and selection are local actions. Translation sends text only when you request it, or when you have explicitly enabled automatic screen translation.