Project Title

OCRmyPDF — Add OCR text layer to scanned PDFs for searchable documents

Overview

OCRmyPDF is an open-source Python tool that adds an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text layer to scanned PDF files, making them searchable and copy-paste friendly. It stands out for its ability to handle multiple languages, maintain image resolution, and produce PDF/A files, which are optimized for long-term storage.

Key Features

Generates searchable PDF/A files from regular PDFs
Places OCR text accurately below images for easy copy/paste
Maintains the original resolution of embedded images
Performs "lossless" OCR without disrupting other content
Optimizes PDF images, often resulting in smaller file sizes
Deskews and cleans images before OCR if requested
Validates input and output files
Distributes work across all available CPU cores
Supports over 100 languages using Tesseract OCR engine
Keeps private data private
Handles files with thousands of pages
Battle-tested on millions of PDFs

Use Cases

Researchers and academics needing to search through large volumes of scanned documents
Libraries and archives digitizing their collections for easier access
Businesses converting physical documents to searchable digital archives
Individuals wanting to search and copy text from scanned books or documents

Advantages

Supports multiple languages and complex characters
Produces valid, optimized PDF/A files suitable for long-term storage
Efficiently uses system resources, leveraging multiple CPU cores
Open-source and actively maintained, with a large community and many contributors

Limitations / Considerations

The OCR process may not be 100% accurate, especially with low-quality scans or complex layouts
Large PDF files may require significant processing time and resources
The tool may not be suitable for real-time OCR needs due to processing requirements

Tesseract OCR: The OCR engine used by OCRmyPDF, which can be used standalone for OCR tasks.
PyMuPDF: A Python library that can be used for PDF processing, including OCR, but does not focus on adding OCR layers to scanned documents.
PDFPlumber: A Python library for extracting data from PDFs, which can be used in conjunction with OCR tools like OCRmyPDF for data extraction.

Basic Information

GitHub: https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF
Stars: 31,181
License: Unknown
Last Commit: 2025-09-15

📊 Project Information

Project Name: OCRmyPDF
GitHub URL: https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF
Programming Language: Python
⭐ Stars: 31,181
🍴 Forks: 2,162
📅 Created: 2013-12-20
🔄 Last Updated: 2025-09-15

🏷️ Project Topics

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📚 Documentation

This article is automatically generated by AI based on GitHub project information and README content analysis

OCRmyPDF

Project Description