How to copy text from McGraw Hill Connect

Table of Contents

• McGraw-Hill’s Copy Prevention
• Introducing NormCap
• Step-By-Step Guide
• NormCap Usage
  • NormCap YouTube Demo

McGraw-Hill’s Copy Prevention

Copying text from McGraw-Hill’s online accounting textbooks has long been prohibited, creating difficulties for students, including myself. Not only does this prevent offline reading, but it hampers studying and taking digital notes on practice problems as well.

While disabling website copy blocking through changing browser settings dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled to true was thought to be one workaround, McGraw-Hill employs JavaScript to achieve their copy protection. Fortunately, I have finally found a solution that does not require circumventing their copy prevention.

Introducing NormCap

I discovered NordCap, an OCR-powered screenshot tool, entirely by accident while browsing the featured category in the Gnome software store on my Linux system (Vanilla OS). Curious, I installed it to try it out.

NordCap allows users to copy text from a wide range of sources, not just images. It enables extracting text from online resources like McGraw Hill Connect as well as videos, photos, GIFs, and essentially any content displayed on the screen.

Instead of capturing images, NordCap is able to detect and extract the text. As shown in the GIF below.

Step-By-Step Guide

1. You will need to download and install NormCap via https://dynobo.github.io/normcap/
2. Start NormCap, a pink border will appear after the permissions have been given by the user
3. Select the region of text you wish to copy, the text is now copied
4. Paste the text anywhere or press Ctrl+V to paste from clipboard
5. Done!

Note: Settings can be accessed by starting NormCap or pressing Capture in the tray icon while NormCap is running, Settings will be located in the top right of the screen as of v0.4.1

NormCap Usage

NormCap provides a free and open source tool for students to capture notes and problem sets. Once NormCap is installed and configured, it enables students to easily copy down assignments and materials to review and study. NormCap offers this functionality without any ads, allowing students to focus on their coursework.

NormCap YouTube Demo