PDF OCR Extraction

Extract text from scanned documents and image-based PDFs using OCR technology.

Overview

This skill helps you:

• Extract text from scanned documents

• Make image PDFs searchable

• Digitize paper documents

• Process handwritten text (limited)

• Batch process multiple documents

How to Use

Basic OCR

"Extract text from this scanned PDF"

"OCR this document image"

"Make this PDF searchable"

With Options

"Extract text from pages 1-10, English language"

"OCR this document, preserve layout"

"Extract and output as structured data"

Document Types

OCR Quality by Document Type

Document Type

Expected Quality

Tips

Typed documents

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 95%+

Best results

Printed books

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 90%+

Watch for aging

Forms

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 85%+

Check boxes may need manual

Tables/Data

⭐⭐⭐ 80%+

Structure may need fixing

Handwritten (neat)

⭐⭐ 60-80%

Variable results

Handwritten (cursive)

⭐ 30-60%

Often needs manual review

Mixed content

⭐⭐⭐ 75%+

Depends on complexity

Output Formats

Plain Text Extraction

## OCR Result: [Document Name]

**Pages Processed**: [X]

**Language**: [Detected/Specified]

**Confidence**: [X]%

---

[Extracted text content here]

---

### Notes

- [Any issues or uncertainties]

- [Characters that may be incorrect]

Structured Extraction

## OCR Extraction: [Document Name]

### Document Info

| Field | Value |

|-------|-------|

| Title | [Extracted or inferred] |

| Date | [If found] |

| Author | [If found] |

### Content by Section

#### [Header 1]

[Content under this header]

#### [Header 2]

[Content under this header]

### Tables Found

| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |

|----------|----------|----------|

| [Data] | [Data] | [Data] |

### Uncertain Text

| Page | Original | Confidence | Possible |

|------|----------|------------|----------|

| 3 | "teh" | 70% | "the" |

| 5 | "l0ve" | 65% | "love" |

Searchable PDF Output

## OCR to Searchable PDF

**Source**: [filename.pdf]

**Output**: [filename_searchable.pdf]

### Processing Summary

| Metric | Value |

|--------|-------|

| Pages | [X] |

| Words extracted | [Y] |

| Average confidence | [Z]% |

| Processing time | [T] seconds |

### Quality Report

- [X] pages with 95%+ confidence

- [Y] pages with 80-94% confidence

- [Z] pages with <80% confidence (review recommended)

### Searchability

✅ Document is now text-searchable

✅ Original images preserved

✅ Text layer added behind images

Pre-Processing Tips

Image Quality Checklist

Before OCR, ensure:

• Resolution: 300 DPI minimum (600 for small text)

• Contrast: Clear black text on white background

• Alignment: Document is straight (not skewed)

• Completeness: No cut-off edges

• Cleanliness: No stains, marks, or shadows

Common Pre-Processing Steps

Issue

Solution

Low resolution

Upscale image first

Skewed/rotated

Auto-deskew

Poor contrast

Adjust levels/threshold

Noise/specks

Apply noise reduction

Shadows

Flatten lighting

Color document

Convert to grayscale

Language Support

Supported Languages

• Excellent: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian

• Good: Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Japanese, Korean

• Moderate: Arabic, Hebrew (RTL support), Hindi

• Basic: Many others with varying quality

Multi-Language Documents

"OCR this document, detect language automatically"

"Extract text, primary: English, secondary: Chinese"

Handling Specific Content

Forms and Checkboxes

## Form Extraction: [Form Name]

### Field Values

| Field | Value | Confidence |

|-------|-------|------------|

| Name | John Smith | 98% |

| Date | 01/15/2026 | 95% |

| Address | 123 Main St | 92% |

### Checkboxes

| Question | Checked |

|----------|---------|

| Option A | ☑️ Yes |

| Option B | ☐ No |

| Option C | ☑️ Yes |

### Signature

[Signature detected on page X - cannot extract text]

Tables

## Table Extraction

### Table 1 (Page 2)

| Header A | Header B | Header C |

|----------|----------|----------|

| Value 1 | Value 2 | Value 3 |

| Value 4 | Value 5 | Value 6 |

**Table confidence**: 85%

**Note**: Column 3 may have alignment issues

Handwritten Text

## Handwritten Text Extraction

**Legibility Assessment**: [Good/Fair/Poor]

**Recommended**: Manual review

### Extracted Text (Confidence: 65%)

[Extracted text with uncertain words marked]

### Uncertain Words

| Original | Best Guess | Alternatives |

|----------|------------|--------------|

| [image] | "meeting" | "meeting", "meaning" |

| [image] | "Tuesday" | "Tuesday", "Thursday" |

⚠️ **Low confidence extraction - please verify manually**

Batch Processing

Batch OCR Job

## Batch OCR Processing

**Folder**: [Path]

**Total Documents**: [X]

**Status**: [In Progress/Complete]

### Results

| File | Pages | Confidence | Status |

|------|-------|------------|--------|

| doc1.pdf | 5 | 96% | ✅ Complete |

| doc2.pdf | 12 | 88% | ✅ Complete |

| doc3.pdf | 3 | 72% | ⚠️ Review |

| doc4.pdf | 8 | - | ❌ Failed |

### Issues

- doc3.pdf: Pages 2-3 have handwriting

- doc4.pdf: File corrupted

### Summary

- Successful: [X]

- Need Review: [Y]

- Failed: [Z]

Tool Recommendations

Cloud Services

• Google Cloud Vision (excellent accuracy)

• Amazon Textract (good for forms)

• Azure Computer Vision (balanced)

• Adobe Acrobat (integrated)

Desktop Software

• ABBYY FineReader (best accuracy)

• Adobe Acrobat Pro (reliable)

• Readiris (good value)

• Tesseract (free, open source)

Programming Libraries

• pytesseract (Python + Tesseract)

• EasyOCR (Python, multi-language)

• PaddleOCR (Python, good for Asian languages)

Limitations

• Cannot guarantee 100% accuracy

• Handwritten text has low accuracy

• Very small text may not extract well

• Decorative fonts are problematic

• Background images reduce quality

• Cannot read text in complex graphics

• Processing time increases with pages