PDF OCR Extraction

SKILL.md

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