pdf2pdfocr

A tool to OCR a PDF (or supported images) and add a text "layer" (a "pdf sandwich") in the original file making it a searchable PDF. The script uses only open source tools.

donations

This software is free, but if you like it, please donate to support new features.

Bitcoin (BTC) address: 173D1zQQyzvCCCek9b1SpDvh7JikBEdtRJ

tips

Tips are also welcome!

Dogecoin (DOGE) address: D94hD2qPnkxmZk8qa1b6F1d7NfUrPkmcrG

Please contact for donations and tips in other cryptocurrencies.

installation

In Linux, installation is straightforward. Just install required packages and be happy. You can use "install_command" script to copy required files to "/usr/local/bin".

In macOS, you will need macports.

# First install Xcode from Mac App Store, then:
xcode-select --install
sudo xcodebuild -license
# Install Macports from https://www.macports.org/install.php
sudo port selfupdate
# Install tesseract as main ocr engine (Portuguese included below - please add your preferred languages)
sudo port install git libtool automake autoconf tesseract tesseract-por tesseract-osd tesseract-eng
# Install cuneiform (the optional ocr engine - see flag "-c")
sudo port install cuneiform
# Install qpdf (optional for better performance)
sudo port install qpdf
# Install python 3 and other dependencies
sudo port install python37 py37-pip poppler poppler-data ImageMagick ghostscript
# Configure default python3 installer
sudo port select --set python3 python37
sudo port select --set pip pip37
# Install libs (please ignore warning messages)
sudo pip3 install reportlab Gooey
sudo pip3 install https://github.com/mstamy2/PyPDF2/archive/master.zip
# Install optional libs (for cuneiform)
sudo pip3 install lxml beautifulsoup4

Cuneiform and qpdf are optional.

In Windows, you will need to manually install required software. Please read "install_windows.txt" file and try the tutorial with scoop tool. It's easy! :-)

docker (without GUI)

The Dockerfile can be used to build a docker image to run pdf2pdfocr inside a container. To build the image, please download all sources and run.

docker build -t leofcardoso/pdf2pdfocr:latest .

It's also possible to pull the docker image from docker hub.

docker pull leofcardoso/pdf2pdfocr

You can run the application with docker run.

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/home/docker" leofcardoso/pdf2pdfocr -v -i ./sample_file.pdf

basic usage

This will create a searchable (OCR) PDF file in the same dir of "input_file".

pdf2pdfocr.py -i <input_file>

In some cases, you will want to deal with option flags. Please use:

pdf2pdfocr.py --help

to view all the options.

It's also possible to use GUI.

pdf2pdfocr_gui.py <<optional input file>>