OCRmyPDF adds an OCR text layer to scanned PDF files, allowing them to be searched or copy-pasted.

ocrmypdf                      # it's a scriptable command line program
   -l eng+fra                 # it supports multiple languages
   --rotate-pages             # it can fix pages that are misrotated
   --deskew                   # it can deskew crooked PDFs!
   --title "My PDF"           # it can change output metadata
   --jobs 4                   # it uses multiple cores by default
   --output-type pdfa         # it produces PDF/A by default
   input_scanned.pdf          # takes PDF input (or images)
   output_searchable.pdf      # produces validated PDF output

See the release notes for details on the latest changes.

• Generates a searchable PDF/A file from a regular PDF
• Places OCR text accurately below the image to ease copy / paste
• Keeps the exact resolution of the original embedded images
• When possible, inserts OCR information as a "lossless" operation without disrupting any other content
• Optimizes PDF images, often producing files smaller than the input file
• If requested, deskews and/or cleans the image before performing OCR
• Validates input and output files
• Distributes work across all available CPU cores
• Uses Tesseract OCR engine to recognize more than 100 languages
• Keeps your private data private.
• Scales properly to handle files with thousands of pages.
• Battle-tested on millions of PDFs.

For details: please consult the documentation.

I searched the web for a free command line tool to OCR PDF files: I found many, but none of them were really satisfying:

• Either they produced PDF files with misplaced text under the image (making copy/paste impossible)
• Or they did not handle accents and multilingual characters
• Or they changed the resolution of the embedded images
• Or they generated ridiculously large PDF files
• Or they crashed when trying to OCR
• Or they did not produce valid PDF files
• On top of that none of them produced PDF/A files (format dedicated for long time storage)

...so I decided to develop my own tool.

Linux, Windows, macOS and FreeBSD are supported. Docker images are also available, for both x64 and ARM.

For everyone else, see our documentation for installation steps.

OCRmyPDF uses Tesseract for OCR, and relies on its language packs. For Linux users, you can often find packages that provide language packs:

# Display a list of all Tesseract language packs
apt-cache search tesseract-ocr

# Debian/Ubuntu users
apt-get install tesseract-ocr-chi-sim  # Example: Install Chinese Simplified language pack

# Arch Linux users
pacman -S tesseract-data-eng tesseract-data-deu # Example: Install the English and German language packs

# brew macOS users
brew install tesseract-lang

You can then pass the -l LANG argument to OCRmyPDF to give a hint as to what languages it should search for. Multiple languages can be requested.

OCRmyPDF supports Tesseract 4.1.1+. It will automatically use whichever version it finds first on the PATH environment variable. On Windows, if PATH does not provide a Tesseract binary, we use the highest version number that is installed according to the Windows Registry.

Once OCRmyPDF is installed, the built-in help which explains the command syntax and options can be accessed via:

ocrmypdf --help

Our documentation is served on Read the Docs.

Please report issues on our GitHub issues page, and follow the issue template for quick response.

# Add an OCR layer and convert to PDF/A
ocrmypdf input.pdf output.pdf

# Convert an image to single page PDF
ocrmypdf input.jpg output.pdf

# Add OCR to a file in place (only modifies file on success)
ocrmypdf myfile.pdf myfile.pdf

# OCR with non-English languages (look up your language's ISO 639-3 code)
ocrmypdf -l fra LeParisien.pdf LeParisien.pdf

# OCR multilingual documents
ocrmypdf -l eng+fra Bilingual-English-French.pdf Bilingual-English-French.pdf

# Deskew (straighten crooked pages)
ocrmypdf --deskew input.pdf output.pdf

For more features, see the documentation.

In addition to the required Python version, OCRmyPDF requires external program installations of Ghostscript and Tesseract OCR. OCRmyPDF is pure Python, and runs on pretty much everything: Linux, macOS, Windows and FreeBSD.

OCRmyPDF uses the Tesseract OCR engine to recognize text in scanned PDF files. The process involves several steps:

1. Preprocessing: The input PDF is preprocessed to improve the quality of the images. This may include deskewing, cleaning, and other image enhancements.
2. OCR: Tesseract is used to perform OCR on the preprocessed images. Tesseract analyzes the images and identifies text regions, recognizing characters and words.
3. Text Layer Creation: The recognized text is used to create an OCR text layer, which is added to the PDF. This text layer is positioned accurately below the original image to ensure proper alignment.
4. PDF/A Conversion: If requested, the output PDF is converted to PDF/A format, which is suitable for long-term archiving.

The output of OCRmyPDF is a searchable PDF file. The key features of the output format are:

• Searchable Text: The OCR text layer allows the PDF to be searched for specific words or phrases. The text is hidden behind the original image, preserving the visual appearance of the document.
• Copy/Paste Functionality: The recognized text can be selected and copied from the PDF, enabling easy extraction of text content.
• PDF/A Compliance: If PDF/A conversion is enabled, the output PDF will comply with the PDF/A standard, ensuring long-term preservation and compatibility with archival systems.
• Optimized File Size: OCRmyPDF optimizes the PDF images, often resulting in smaller file sizes compared to the input file.

For more details, see the technical documentation.