The simplest way to describe textshots is that they’re screenshots containing text. And it goes by different names. Mat Honan called them screenshorts (terrible name I think). The ones posted specifically on Twitter are sometimes referred to as tweetshots.
I personally prefer textshot. And while it started as a simple way to describe something users were doing to get around twitter’s 140 character limit (write long text in iOS Notes app and attach it as an image in the tweet), the use case has expanded drastically since then.
You can share textshots for something you highlight on a page that are generated by software. Or you can take a screenshot and then manually highlight the text inside the image.
Textshots are still mostly used on Twitter, to get around the 140 character limit. You can highlight a passage you want to share from an article, attach it as an image and add your comment as a tweet. Plus, we all know that images get more attention than just text (even when it’s text overlaid on images). Yes, it doesn’t make much sense, but hey, that’s the world we’ve built. I’ve been an avid textshoter for the past year or so (my timeline is littered with them).
And here are the best apps for generating and sharing textshots.
1. OneShot
A question worth asking in the fast paced startup system. https://t.co/lRseKANAmG pic.twitter.com/SJo05EwTst
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) November 3, 2015
OneShot was one of the first apps that made me believe that textshots weren’t hacks or just another fad. Because here was a beautiful, polished app meant for creating textshots.
And a year or so later, I still think OneShot is the best textshot app out there. Because it sticks to the basics.
Take a screenshot. Open the OneShot app, select the most recent screenshot in just 1 tap, crop, and start highlighting text using your finger. OneShot does OCR in the background and knows what exactly on the screen is text. It’s all very clever.
And then you can select the background color by swiping your finger around on a trackpad like color picker.
Once you’re done, OneShot will do another clever thing. It will search the text from the screenshot across the web and will give you three links it thinks the text comes from. Usually, the first link is the right one. Tap it and OneShot will embed the title in the image and attach the link in the tweet. You can also save the image if you wish to share it somewhere else.
I think OneShot generates some of the best-looking textshots because you get the best of the both worlds – highlighted text with context, plus the original styling of the page.
Download: OneShot
2. Instapaper
Graham makes sense. #CollegeReadingList https://t.co/XhLX5JCeQ9 via @instapaper pic.twitter.com/iEveYZY7Fx
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) October 30, 2015
Instapaper has really good textshot options. They’re for premium members only. Once you highlight a passage, you’ll be able to share it. When you select the tweet option, the textshot will be embedded. Instapaper will use the current reading formatting options to generate the image.
Download: Instapaper
3. Textshot+
The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me… or Can we design sociotechnical systems that don’t suck? pic.twitter.com/x435jx8i03
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) July 12, 2016
Textshot+ is a really simple textshot app. Select the text from Safari, bring up the Textshot extension and start customizing the image. You’ll first need to go to the app and enable themes (it was free for my case).
Also, Textshot+’s default behavior is weird. It pastes in the first paragraph of the article and gives you arrows to switch between paragraphs or add them. I just couldn’t get used to it.
Thankfully, you can disable this. Go to “Style” and turn on the “Selection only” toggle. This will bring back the Safari text you selected. The app is pretty good but much like other apps on this list it mostly just works in Safari. If you try to invoke it via an app like Pocket, it just won’t function.
Download: Textshot+
4. Highly
No matter if you're bearish or bullish on bots, this is a must-read story.https://t.co/p8pRXFrERa pic.twitter.com/z8Ijg4lvdt
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) April 25, 2016
OneShot is the essence of a textshot app. Highly, on the other hand, generates the most beautiful textshots, hands down. And that’s not even what Highly is about.
Highly’s main function is to help you highlight the web. You can highlight on any website, just for yourself or share the highlights with your followers or on the web.
I really like Highly’s Chrome extension and that’s how I primarily use it. The newly released Highly app for iPhone and iPad offers the same features.
When you’re on a page in Safari that you want to highlight, you can tap the Highly extension and wait a bit while Highly optimizes the page for highlighting, right there. This is a good feature. You’re not thrown away to another app.
You can tap on text and swipe to highlight. Then tap on a highlight to bring up options. Tap the “Share” button. This will open the Highly app. Tap the “Twitter” button and you’ll see that the textshot has been integrated, along with the link.
Yes, only as a textshot app, Highly doesn’t make much sense. But if you like to highlight the best parts of the stuff you read, and you want to save them, Highly is one of the best ways to do that.
Download: Highly
5. Liner
Pmarchive – Guide to Career Planning, part 1: Opportunityhttps://t.co/jXBYTMeR4o pic.twitter.com/DFWDz5A8st
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) July 15, 2016
Liner is an alternative to Highly. But my experience with the app has been shaky. Liner pushes you to open the webpage inside its own app for highlighting. And while it does have a textshot feature but it doesn’t look as cool as Highly.
Download: Liner
6. Annotable
If you don’t want anything to do with apps like Highly or OneShot, which are customized to share highlights to Twitter, check out Annotable. We recently crowned Annotable the best annotation app for iPhone and iPad.
The $1.99 Text Markup in-app purchase will let you do something similar to OneShot – highlight any text in a screenshot. But that’s it. Once you’ve saved the image, it’s on you how you want to share it. No web page title or link will be integrated for you.
Download: Annotable
7. Linky
If you do a lot of Twitter or Facebook sharing from Safari or other reading apps, you could use Linky. The $3.99 app is the advanced version of the little Twitter or Facebook share popup built into iOS.
Just highlight some text in Safari or copy it and bring up the Linky extension.
The popup will now add the text inside the tweet as text along with the link. But if you tap the “Photo” icon, you’ll see a textshot image generated right there. Tap it to integrate it in the tweet. Then tap the “Text Clip” option to select all integrated text and delete it.
Then tap “Send” to post the tweet. Before doing that you can also switch between the logged in accounts across different platforms.
Download: Linky ($3.99)
8. Medium
“The user experience while dealing with companies could be much better even…” — @sarthakgh https://t.co/91Igw11vt9 pic.twitter.com/JT1xPgX9TQ
— Khamosh Pathak (@pixeldetective) July 4, 2016
Of course Medium supports textshots. This is limited to the Medium app. But if you like reading stuff about technology, you might already have Medium installed.
Medium has a really good implementation of the highlight feature. Once you’ve selected the text you want to create a textshot for, tap the “Share” button from the popup.
Medium will take a second to generate the textshot image. You can then select the app of choice – Twitter, Tweetbot or even Facebook and write your text before sharing.
Download: Medium
9. Wikipedia Mobile
Oh yeah, even Wikipedia, a staple of online downward spirals that end up 3 hours long, is getting in on the textshot action. When you’re looking up something and find a really interesting fact you want to share, you can now highlight it and tap “Share” to see the generated textshot. Then tap “Share as image” to share the textshot on your preferred platform.
Download: Wikipedia Mobile
Your Favorite Reading Apps?
What are your favorite apps for discovering and reading awesome articles? Share with us in the comments below.
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