What gets captured
Automatic text extraction, and drawing the area yourself when a layout defeats it.
Once a source is approved, CogniPage has to decide which part of the window is the thing you are reading. Almost always it works this out by itself. This page is about the setting that governs that, and what to do on the pages where automatic extraction cannot win.
Find the text automatically
The default. CogniPage picks out the article and skips menus, sidebars, navigation, cookie banners and comments, then keeps the paragraphs you dwell on rather than everything on the page. This is right for nearly every web page, document and reader.
Let me draw the area
Some layouts defeat any automatic reading: multi-column academic PDFs, dense course pages, readers that draw text to a canvas. For those, you can point at the text instead.
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Switch the setting on
In Settings → Tracking, choose Let me draw the area (guided).
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Draw a box the first time each source is tracked
The screen dims and you drag a rectangle around the text you are reading. Press Esc to cancel.
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Read normally
Only what is inside the box is captured. The box is remembered for that page or document, so you draw it once, not every session.
Redrawing an area
Layouts move. Press ⌘⇧T (macOS) or Ctrl⇧T (Windows) at any moment to draw a new area for the page in front of you — you do not have to be in guided mode to use it, and it takes effect immediately.
Every area you have drawn is listed under Authored in Settings → Tracking, where you can clear any of them and go back to automatic text extraction for that source.
The outline
Outline the area while capturing keeps a thin border around the region being read, so you can always see what CogniPage is looking at. It never blocks clicks or typing. It is on by default; turn it off for a completely clear screen.
Leave it on automatic. Reach for the guided mode only when a specific document is producing junk — headers, page numbers, the wrong column — and use ⌘⇧T as a one-off fix rather than switching modes globally.
Windows that publish no text at all
Scanned PDFs, image-only documents and some browsers expose nothing readable to the accessibility layer. Where Screen Recording is granted, CogniPage recognises the text from the pixels instead, on your device. The image is read and discarded in memory — no screenshot is written to disk or transmitted. Without that permission, those windows simply produce nothing.