Jun 28, 2019 06. Tesseract OCR. Tesseract OCR is a free OCR Engine developed by Google for Mac OS, Windows and Linux. It was originally created by Ray Smith and Hewlett Packard. It is not an OCR App and therefore you cannot use it as you operate other OCR software on Mac. ↳ Command-Line OCR with Tesseract on Mac OS X tags: ocr Originally Published: 2014-11-13 This is a short writeup of the working process I came up with for command-line OCR of a non-OCR’d PDF with searchable PDF output on OS X, after running into a thousand little gotchas.
- Oct 13, 2019 Tesseract-OCR is a free and open source OCR solution that is currently maintained by Google. It has a wealth of options and can be used on Linux, Windows and OS X. However, whilst well featured, it has support for several languages and these can be extended via downloadable extensions, it is extremely complex to run and requires some.
- Sudo make install. Test to see if Tesseract installed properly by typing tesseract. Warning: If the command can not be found, then you need to move the tesseract executable into a folder that's part of the PATH system variable. Copy./api/tesseract and./api/.libs to /opt/local/bin/.
Also ensure that your scanner is connected to your Mac and to perform an OCR scan, make sure the “Input” tab is selected and then change the “Options” field to “Professional”. Then in the “Output” tab, simply select “OCR Output File”. Click “Scan” and then “View” to see the outputted text. MacPorts is an open-source software package management tool that makes it relatively easy for Mac users to compile, install and upgrade open-source software and their dependencies. It's a great first step in installing Tesseract on a Mac. If you have an older version of the Mac OS then you'll need to create a Mac Developer ID at the link. Jun 10, 2008 A Java/.NET GUI frontend for Tesseract OCR engine. Supports optical character recognition for Vietnamese and other languages supported by Tesseract. VietOCR is released and distributed under the Apache License, v2.0. Features: Multi-platform (Java version only) Windows; Solaris; Linux/Unix; Mac OS X; Others.
| Click here to return to the '10.6: How to use OCR with HP multi-function printers' hint |
Apart from the introduction dealing with HP dropping support for OCR, this has nothing to do with HP devices. The hint, as it relies on the Tesseract software, will work with any OS that supports the software.
Coumerelli, the folder-actions tricks should work with all OS X versions that support folder actions.. I'd imagine that includes 10.5.
The command-line stuff should work with all versions of OS X, can't see any reason it wouldn't.
I've also found a GUI interface to the Tesseract OCR script for 10.5 and later: http://download.dv8.ro/files/TesseractGUI/
Keep in mind that the basic Tesseract script takes uncompressed TIFF files only. So, whatever your scanner produces, you'll need to convert to uncompressed TIFF. The folder action trick does that when fed a .png.
There are ways to make Tesseract work with other formats if you really need to, and you can find those with a little googling and implement them with more command-line fussing. More trouble than it's worth, IMHO, given how easy it is to do uncompressed TIFF conversions under OS X.
One thing I've found is that the folder action for the OCR doesn't like to be fed multiple files all at once. It seems to prefer to have the first file converted and no other folder actions underway. This is no problem if your intent is to have it auto-OCR images as they come from the scanner (and any conversion process). But if you drag a whole bunch of TIFF files into the folder-action-enabled 'OCR me' folder, some of the files will be missed. This appears to possibly point to a bug in the folder-actions mechanism.
Although this was the case when Snow Leopard launched last year, HP quietly updated their printer software and supporting scanning/fax applications for many of their Officejet printers some months later to be compatible with Snow Leopard.
No OCR is yet available from HP for my top-of-the-line, 2006-vintage OfficeJet multifunction.
Maybe they're helping customers with other models, but not me.
I have no complaint about the printer or what functionality is available right now, but when they declined to support OCR after the dust settled following SL's release, they took away part of what I paid for.
Meanwhile, gotta say, it makes no sense to have to go to System Preferences, Print & Fax, and then hit a 'Scan' tab in order to access my scanner. A very un-Mac user experience.
This may depend on the specific printer type, but after the upgrade to 10.6.2 (I believe, it may also have been 10.6.1) the driver for my HP 1350 AIO was updated to allow the use of it's scanner through the standard SL imaging interface. This means I can now open Preview, choose File->Import from scanner->HP 1350
and it will let me scan from the application (and save as uncompressed tif right away).
This will work for all apps that support the imaging interface, which includes at least Preview and Image Capture.
In addition you can use the Capture Image Service in other apps to scan/import the image through Image Capture. This works well in Pages for instance.
I use the HP software too, both for scanning images and for OCR. Works fine. If I remember correctly, VelOCRaptor also worked for me while I was awaiting the new software from HP, but the HP Scan stuff is easier to use, IMHO.
I got the HP Scan.app software to work without any problems, including its IRIS OCR functionality. After the upgrade to Show Leopard, I simply tried to install the full featured HP software dated Sep 2009 and available on HP's website at http://tinyurl.com/dmjgvn. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this app is to use and how well it performs. The PDFs that are generated are a bit larger than necessary, but I just post-process the documents with the quartz filter in Preview to reduce the file size.
I am using HP Scan.app v2.1.3 (7) on Mac OS X v10.6.2 on a MacBook Pro.
Hope this helps.
Y'know, if I had tried that, and it worked, I wouldn't have had to go down the path that led me to Tesseract. But I didn't try it because HP has all sorts of warnings not to do so.
Anybody have any idea why? They lost a ton of customer goodwill in this episode, and why do that if the old software works? Are there hidden consequences somewhere?
Yeah, I was confused as well since the HP apps are dated Sep of last year and even now after five months one gets the impression from the chats on the Web that no HP solution exists. But perhaps I just had dumb luck with these drivers, while they may not work for others?
Nevertheless, I much appreciate your effort and that you have shared your workaround with this community. Don't worry, it is just a matter of time until the next upgrade and HP software not working. Also, your hint is handy if one needs to do OCR on existing tiff files.
Again, thanks and keep the hints coming!
Apparently it would work sometimes, and not in other cases (models?).
Rather than fixing the problematic cases, HP chose to tell everyone to stop using the old software.
Before the driver update I tried every tip I could find, reinstalled the same HP software, it would install, it would start a scan and then report some obscure error that I couldn't find any info on.
Finally I just gave up, vowing to never buy an HP printer ever again. Then after a SL upgrade suddenly I could access the scanner from Preview (see my other comment of today).
I don't have an HP printer/scanner, but I have tried to install Google's tesseract unsuccessfully last year. I'll try these steps, and see if I get better results. Thanks.
If you run into trouble, please post all details. It worked well for me but, as you experienced, the instructions found on-line elsewhere are pretty terrible.
Hope the process I documented works for you. As an OCR engine, Tesseract really rocks.
Works like a champ. And in French and German, after I'd downloaded the dictionaries from Google Code. HP not required: I used it with TIFF output obtained from a Canon scanner using Image Capture. It's not entirely house-trained: give it a file name it does not like, and it crashes. Maybe I should be a good citizen and submit a patch..
Can't say for sure if it needs Snow Leopard, but a glance at the code suggests it should be pretty portable. (In particular, it doesn't use threads, which would make it faster on modern Macs. Not that it's a slouch anyway.)
Tesseract Ocr For Mac Os X 10 11
As you can tell, I'm not a Terminal guy. Did not make it past the make command. What do I need to install to make this work?
iMac:tesseract-2.04 tcsdoc$ ./configure
checking build system type.. i686-apple-darwin10.2.0
checking host system type.. i686-apple-darwin10.2.0
checking for cl.exe.. no
checking for g++.. no
checking for C++ compiler default output file name..
configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
iMac:tesseract-2.04 tcsdoc$ make
-bash: make: command not found
iMac:tesseract-2.04 tcsdoc$
They include the Gnu C compiler (gcc/g++) and gmake, which are both required to build software from source.
Thanks for pointing that out. I'd installed XCode long ago so had no idea this wasn't part of the standard OS X configuration.
Also available for Fink users: fink install tesseract
The Folder Action OCR step needs clarification, please. What is, on Snow Leopard, the exact procedure (from beginning to end) for using the script you've written/modified and shown in this textarea?
When replying, please keep in mind that I am speaking from the standpoint of a complete newbie. Please indicate the applications to open (for example: there is no such thing as a 'Folder Actions script editor' in my Utilities folder) and the steps necessary to get to the place where one can paste in the script you've provided.
You might be talking about context menu items, but that still isn't apparent to a complete newbie.
Thanks!
Oh, Folder Actions are wonnnnderful. Sorry to have been terse on the how-to aspect. (Have you seen my recipe for chicken pie? First you catch a chicken, then you bake it in a pie!)
Some resources and examples that will get you started:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/26/applescript-exploring-the-power-of-folder-actions-part-iii/
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/folderaction01.php
..The second one notes, 'As of Snow Leopard (OS 10.6), Script Editor.app has been renamed AppleScript Editor.app and is located in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder.' So, depending on what version of OS X you're using, now you know what you want to use and where to look for it.
Open that app up. Paste in the code from the post here. Save it. Easiest to just save it in your Documents folder, then drag it to ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts ..OS X will ask for authentication if needed. Give that, and voila, your new script is now available to be attached to any folder.
So let's do that. Make a folder somewhere handy. Right-click on it. (On a Mac laptop, press the keypad with two fingers and click.) In the menu that pops up, scroll all the way down to Folder Actions Setup. In the box that pops up, click on the name of the script you just created. Click the Attach button. Done.
Now anytime you drag a file into that folder, it'll get processed by that script. Gad, it's a wonderful feature of OS X. Go crazy with it, you'll love it.
I just want to point out a little more specifically.. TIFF files are generally saved with the tiff extension in OS X. If you use Preview for example to save your JPEG as an uncompressed TIFF for tesseract it'll make a file ending in .tiff which tesseract won't open, it wants .tif only.
Remember kids.. .jpg is a JPEG, and tif is a TIFF. Thank DOS for it's 3 character file extensions causing that. If you're going to automate converting JPEG to TIFF and passing it on to this script, be sure to enforce a single letter f in the extension.
Ocr For Mac Free
to tsdoc and others who had problems getting it to build:
based on posts I found searching google, I reinstalled XCode and the install command worked.
(I don't know whether XCode has to be installed in the first place to make this work, but it looks like something about my XCode installation was messing with some of the commands or command paths.. and my installation had been imported from my previous Mac, maybe that's why.)
sjinsjca's script seems to be set up for making the adjustment, but it doesn't quite do it. Here's what you do to edit the script to change '.tiff' files to '.tif' before feeding they get fed to the tesseract shell script.
1. change the line: to
2. change the line: to 3. after the line: add this line:
The script should now successfully process files ending in '.tiff' as well as '.tif'.
Quick Folder Action Script Creation Steps
1. Copy the script text from the hint.
2. Open the application 'Applescript Editor' (In Application > Utilities)
3. Paste the script text into the script editing window.
4. Hit 'compile' and it will probably give you an error message because there are line breaks from your pasted text that shouldn't be there. In most cases you can just hit 'ok' and then hit the space bar to replace the highlighted linebreak with a space. Sometimes it requires manually fixing a linebreak-- in this script, 'giving up after 120' should not be on its own line, but should finish the line before it.
5. When you can hit 'compile' without an error message, consider making the edits I suggested.
6. Save the script in your User folder > Library > Scripts > Folder Action Scripts. If you don't have a 'Folder Action Scripts' folder, create one there.
7. Do a Spotlight search for 'Folder Actions Setup.app' and fire it up.
8. Select the folder (create it first in Finder if need be) you want to add a folder action script to. On the right-hand pane, hit the + sign and select the script you just saved from the available list.
9. Be sure 'Enable Folder Actions' is checked, and quit.
Thanks for the help in getting the make command to work. Installing Xcode did the trick. This leads to my next problem. Tesseract runs but I get the error message below:
iMac:SCRATCH tcsdoc$ tesseract scan.tif scan_text
Tesseract Open Source OCR Engine
read_tif_image:Error:Illegal image format:Compression
tesseract:Error:Read of file failed:Scan.tif
Segmentation fault
I have an Epson scanner and use Image Capture to scan the document. I've loaded the scan.tif file into Preview and saved it with no compression but still get the same error. Any ideas on this?
>read_tif_image:Error:Illegal image format:Compression
You need to either save as an uncompressed TIFF (open in Preview and Save As uncompressed TIF), or install libTIFF, then re-install tesseract (see my comment below).
Thanks for the tip. An 'out-of-the-box' limitation is support for multi-page TIFF's, however, if you install libTIFF (BEFORE installing tesseract), you not only will get support for multi-page TIFF's, but also support for compressed TIFF's
Get libTIFF 3.9.2 here: http://download.osgeo.org/libtiff/
libTIFF home page: http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/
note, this is mentioned in the FAQ: http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/wiki/FAQ
Does it support multi-page tiff files?
Only with 2.03 and later, and only if you have libtiff installed. See Compressed Tiff above.
Here's how I did an OCR scan in Snow Leopard using my HP 7210 all in one:
1st I updated the driver.
2nd I clicked on /Applications/Hewlett-Packard/HP Scan.app
3rd I choose Scan Documents
4th I hit the Save Icon at the top and choose format: TXT and make sure Contents were save to single file. . .
Works like a charm..It still uses Readiris software behind the scene
Hi,
does someone knows what to do to get a HP 1312nfi scanning working under 10.6.x?
F.e I cant scan using the preview.app. I don't see my scanner in the print and fax pane, even after selecting the printer.
Thanks
Free OCR Software for Mac – OCR Software for Macintosh:
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. You need an OCR Software for Mac to convert scanned images & documents into editable text formats. Whether it is your business agreement or purchase/sale invoices, you can scan them on Mac to get in digital format. Thereafter you need to convert them to PDF, text or other format for editing purposes. An OCR Software for Mac is useful to extract text from Image & PDF and convert them to searchable PDF or text documents.
Contents
- 1 Best Free OCR Software for Mac
Best Free OCR Software for Mac
There are many OCR Software available for Mac OS, some software are free and some are paid. It is really tough to know which OCR software for Mac you should choose. Because the accuracy of OCR software is more important than other features and design. We have conducted a research to find out some best and free OCR software for Mac, such software list is mentioned below:
- PDF OCR X Community Edition
- Microsoft OneNote OCR
- OCR Documents in Google Drive
- LEADTOOLS OCR App
- Evernote App
- Tesseract OCR
- OCR.Space
- Online OCR
- Convertio OCR
- OCRmyPDF
Let us discuss each of the above OCR Software for Mac in detail and explain their features to know which software is suitable for you.
01. PDF OCR X Community Edition
PDF OCR X Community Edition is a free OCR Software for Mac System. This app is developed by the Web Line Solutions Corporation to help the Mac users. You can convert scanned document and image files to text documents and searchable PDF formats.
Tesseract Ocr For Mac Os X 10 11 Download Free
PDF OCR X Community Edition has a simple drag and drop feature to quickly convert the scanned files into editable text formats. You must have the scanned file in PDF or image format to use PDF OCR X App and convert them into an editable format.
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PDF OCR X App uses advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to extract the text from PDF even if that text is contained in an image. It supports more than 60 languages including English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Japanese and many others.
02. Microsoft OneNote OCR
OneNote is a digital notebook application developed by Microsoft Corporation. It is useful to create your own notes for personal and business purposes. In addition, Microsoft OneNote also works for converting images files to searchable documents or text files. You can easily insert the PDF, Picture or File Attachment to OneNote and copy text from picture to get your file in an editable format.
OneNote allows the user to create, edit, save and share notes through various platforms and devices. It supports picture, PDF document and attachment files for OCR procedure. You can use OneDrive or SharePoint to access your notes from iPhone, iPad and other devices.
You can instantly extract text from an image by using “Copy text from picture” option in OneNote. The converted files will be in editable formats and searchable PDF for your convenience to edit and prepare it as per your requirement.
03. OCR Documents in Google Drive
Google Drive is a web storage service provided by Google. But very few people know that Google Drive also contains OCR feature. With the help of Google Drive OCR Feature, You can convert any image or PDF file into an editable document. This service is available for free to all the users who have signed into their Google Account and have a working internet connection.
Upload multiple document, image files to Google Drive and open them with Google Docs to convert them to editable text files. It is the easiest way to OCR documents on Mac without using any OCR software.
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Google Drive automatically detects document language and it supports JPEG, PNG, GIF and PDF formats. After conversion, it will retain the bold, italics, font size, font type and line breaks of the text.
04. LEADTOOLS OCR App
LEADTOOLS OCR App is best free OCR Software for Mac Users. It is a free application to perform optical character recognition on images. The OCR App by LEADTOOLS is developed by LEAD Technologies, Inc. for Mac OS X 10.10 or later. It can extract text from images and convert images to various document formats. It keeps superior accuracy and speed while extracting & copying text from and image for editing & sharing.
The OCR App by LEADTOOLS can convert and export images to various document formats such as PDF, DOCX, Text, SVG and many more. It can read Images in different languages in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
LEADTOOLS OCR App offers various options to optimize text recognition, including Invert, Rotate, Image Binarization and Perspective Deskew. It provides fine tuned control over the OCR Engine Settings so that you can customize how your images are recognized.
05. Evernote App
Evernote is a multi-platform application developed by the Evernote Corporation. The Evernote App helps you to capture your ideas and projects. You can OCR images to convert them into searchable text formats. It is capable to extract text from typewritten and handwritten notes, photos of white boards, Post-It notes and to-do lists.
Evernote can identify 28 typewritten and 11 handwritten languages. You can choose which language to use from Recognition Language Setting. It can find words in handwritten notes, photos of white boards, Post-It notes and to-do lists that you scan into Evernote.
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Evernote provides Automatic Sync option that allows you to leave your work from Mac and continue the same on your iPhone or iPad. It can convert the PDF document and Image files to a text file or other document for editing purpose.
06. Tesseract OCR
Tesseract OCR is a free OCR Engine developed by Google for Mac OS, Windows and Linux. It was originally created by Ray Smith and Hewlett Packard. It is not an OCR App and therefore you cannot use it as you operate other OCR software on Mac. You have to open Command line interface on your Mac to use Tesseract OCR to convert an image file into text format.
In 2006, Tesseract OCR was declared as the most accurate OCR software available in market. It comes with more than 100 languages support including English, Afrikaans, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and many more.
Tesseract is operated from command line interface and therefore it is very easy to use OCR engine for developers. If you are a developer, you can train Tesseract to recognize other languages.
07. OCR.Space
OCR.Space is a free online OCR tool powered by the OCR API. It can convert the images and PDF files into texts. You don’t need to download any app to use OCR.Space on your Mac computer. Just connect the Mac to internet and open Ocr.Space site in a web browser. You can also use the simple drag & drop feature to quickly extract text from image and see its overlay.
OCR.Space can convert PDF Document, JPG Image and PNG Image files to Searchable PDF with visible or invisible text layer. You can select OCR document language from the list of 24 languages supported by OCR.Space Online OCR Tool.
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Free Ocr Tesseract
The OCR.Space automatically detects the orientation of image and rotate the image if required before OCR conversion is processed. When DPI is low, you should turn on Auto Enlarge Content option. Turn on Receipt Scanning to recognize table from Image.
08. Online OCR
Online OCR is a free online OCR service with various languages support. You can easily extract text from PDF and Images with help of this Online OCR Software. In order to convert PDF or Image to Text Document, you will have to upload your file to OnlineOCR.Net. After uploading the file, you need to choose language, output format and finally give convert order to proceed.
Tesseract Ocr For Mac Os X 10 12
Online OCR supports recognition of 46 languages such as English, Brazilian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, Korean, Spanish, Turkish and many more. You can upload any Image with maximum file size of 15 MB which is much higher than 2 MB or 5 MB limits by other OCR software.
The Online OCR is able to convert Image to Text for various input formats like PDF, TIF/TIFF, JPEG/JPG, BMP, PCX, PNG and GIF. You can convert your Image file into Word Document (docx), Excel Document (xlsx) and Plain Text (txt).
09. Convertio OCR
Convertio OCR is an online optical character recognition tool for Mac and other computer users. It is able to convert scanned documents and images to text and editable document formats. You can upload image or document from your Mac, Dropbox, Google Drive or paste the file link in URL option. Thereafter you need to select document language(s) and output format & settings to recognize it in Convertio OCR.
Convertio OCR supports various file formats such as PDF, JPG, BMP, GIF, JP2, JPEG, PBM, PCX, PGM, PNG, PPM, TGA, TIFF and WBMP. It can recognize various languages and it can recognize multiple languages in one image to convert it to editable text format.
You should install Convertio extension to your Mac Chrome Browser for using Convertio OCR Tool without visiting its website. Convert your Image File to 11 different formats including Word Document, Excel Workbook, PowerPoint Presentation, Searchable PDF, Text Document and others.
10. OCRmyPDF
OCRmyPDF is a free online tool for optical character recognition. It recognizes PDF document in more than 100 languages. You need to install OCRmyPDF tool on your Mac to use it for converting regular PDF files to searchable PDF files. It optimizes the input PDF files and produces files smaller in size than earlier. It keeps the exact resolution of original embedded images.
OCRmyPDF places OCR text accurately below the image to make the copy and paste easier for the Mac user. It can deskew the crooked PDF files to clean them before converting to searchable PDF/A files.
The OCRmyPDF keeps the exact resolution of embedded images to maintain their original quality and appearance after conversion. It recognizes more than 100 languages and also scales properly to handle files with thousands of pages.
Final Opinion:
All the information mentioned above about Free OCR Software for Mac is true and fair. All OCR Tools and Software are working great on Mac computer. Macos 10.14 mojave download for vmware. You should choose the OCR Software which is suitable to use and meets all your needs.