WordWiseLookup is a small and free software application designed to allow you to perform a customized dictionary lookup of any word present on your screen, regardless of the application or window it is a part of. The program is even capable of looking up words present in a graphic, as it uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technologies.
WordWiseLookup does not present any user interface, except for a small icon that installs on your System Tray area. The program mostly acts as a system service - by clicking on that icon once, you can easily enable or disable the service, and if you right-click on it, you will access its simple menu. Here you can also enable or disable the service, view the "About" window (where the only interesting information displayed is the program's version), completely close the program, and open the "Configure" window. The only thing this window will allow you to do is select whether the word lookup will be performed by pressing the Right-click + Left Ctrl combination, or Right-click + Left Ctrl + Left Shift.
Unfortunately, the OCR engine that comes with the program is not very good, and it frequently fails to recognize the selected words correctly - it tends to omit the letter under the mouse when you press the key combination. Another very important thing about this program is that it uses on-line dictionaries for the lookup task. In fact, when you select a word the program's website will open to let you choose the dictionary to look up in - Definitions, Encyclopedia, Dictionaries, and Standard Search. What WordWiseLookup will do is to make use of third-party online dictionary services - thus, it is necessary that you stay online for this service to work properly.
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