diff --git a/nixos/doc/manual/development/writing-nixos-tests.xml b/nixos/doc/manual/development/writing-nixos-tests.xml
index 6224be0ca1a..322778d1c20 100644
--- a/nixos/doc/manual/development/writing-nixos-tests.xml
+++ b/nixos/doc/manual/development/writing-nixos-tests.xml
@@ -244,6 +244,13 @@ startAll;
     connections.</para></listitem>
   </varlistentry>
 
+  <varlistentry>
+    <term><methodname>waitForText</methodname></term>
+    <listitem><para>Wait until the supplied regular expressions matches
+    the textual contents of the screen by using optical character recognition
+    (see <methodname>getScreenText</methodname>).</para></listitem>
+  </varlistentry>
+
   <varlistentry>
     <term><methodname>waitForWindow</methodname></term>
     <listitem><para>Wait until an X11 window has appeared whose name
diff --git a/nixos/lib/test-driver/Machine.pm b/nixos/lib/test-driver/Machine.pm
index 0dddc1dc14b..d149634e9e6 100644
--- a/nixos/lib/test-driver/Machine.pm
+++ b/nixos/lib/test-driver/Machine.pm
@@ -518,6 +518,17 @@ sub getScreenText {
 }
 
 
+# Wait until a specific regexp matches the textual contents of the screen.
+sub waitForText {
+    my ($self, $regexp) = @_;
+    $self->nest("waiting for $regexp to appear on the screen", sub {
+        retry sub {
+            return 1 if $self->getScreenText =~ /$regexp/;
+        }
+    });
+}
+
+
 # Wait until it is possible to connect to the X server.  Note that
 # testing the existence of /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 is insufficient.
 sub waitForX {