Live Text is a great feature of iOS 15 that lets you extract text from an image and then use it in other apps – whether that be to copy and paste or perhaps to translate.

Well now with iOS 16 it works in video too – here’s how it works.

Okay, I need to capture a video that has some text in it, so what I’ll do is I’ll create this very elaborate setup of my LEGO Orchid and then accidentally show you a peak of my screen in the background.

Oh look, a lovely orchid! Oh no, I do hope no-one can read the text on my screen…

Okay now I’ve captured that very weird little video I’m going to open it up and play it back.

Now when there’s text on the screen if I pause that video, I can zoom in and then simply tap and hold on the text that I want to select – just as if it were a written text in a document or even in a photo.

Of course then I can copy and paste that text, and if I jump into Notes I can then paste it there just like that.

Now with Live Text the formatting isn’t always 100% as you want it to be, I guess it’s still perhaps a work in progress, but it’s amazingly cool that I can grab text out of a video.

In fact I can grab larger passages of text as well, including more lines on my spreadsheet.

So again you just pause the video on the piece you want to capture, you tap and hold, drag across the text you want, and then you can just copy it and paste it wherever you need.

You can also translate, you can use lookup – just like the other features that you can use in Live Text for photos they all now work in video as well.