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Sammeeey / ocr

Python script that converts PDFs into .txt files

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OCR

built & tested using Python 3.11.2

Minimal version of Python script that finds PDF files in speficied directory, converts them into .txt files using Python Tesseract & saves final files in same directory as original PDF files.

Installation (on windows 10)

  1. clone repo
  2. enter repo directory: cd ocr
  3. install Python tesseract
  4. create virtual environment: py -m venv venv
  5. activate virtual environment: venv\Scripts\activate.bat
  6. update pip: py -m pip install --upgrade pip
  7. install requirements: pip install -r requirements.txt
  8. run program as described below (Usage)

Usage (on windows 10)

  1. run py ocr.py
  2. follow instructions & prompts of program

Quickstart

  1. run py ocr.py
  2. press Enter to use sample PDFs in ./samplePDFs subdirectory by default

What happens

ocr.py creates .txt files with content of all PDFs in given directory

  • for each PDF in target directory (default: ./samplePDFs): pdf2image module used to convert PDFs in into images
    • for each image
      • pytesseract module used to convert text in image to string, then appends text to .txt file with name of original PDF & saves alongside original PDF
  • process takes up to 10 minutes
  • content of ./samplePDFs expected to look like ./samplePDFsResult eventually

Resources

sample PDFs

Limitations / Known Issues

  • potentially inaccurate - depending on quality, structure & content of input PDFs (images, charts, ...)

Potential Improvements

  • adjust OCR settings to real world input PDFs (to achieve best results for expected input)
  • create REST API to get share results with clients (long-term?)
    • authentication & encryption (e.g. using JSON Web Token)

About

Python script that converts PDFs into .txt files

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