using IronOcr; using IronSoftware.Drawing; // We can delve deep into OCR results as an object model of // Pages, Barcodes, Paragraphs, Lines, Words and Characters // This allows us to explore, export and draw OCR content using other APIs/ var ocrTesseract = new IronTesseract(); ocrTesseract.Configuration.ReadBarCodes = true; using var ocrInput = new OcrInput(); var pages = new int[] { 1, 2 }; ocrInput.LoadImageFrames("example.tiff", pages); OcrResult ocrResult = ocrTesseract.Read(ocrInput); foreach (var page in ocrResult.Pages) { // Page object int PageNumber = page.PageNumber; string PageText = page.Text; int PageWordCount = page.WordCount; // null if we dont set Ocr.Configuration.ReadBarCodes = true; OcrResult.Barcode[] Barcodes = page.Barcodes; AnyBitmap PageImage = page.ToBitmap(ocrInput); int PageWidth = page.Width; int PageHeight = page.Height; double PageRotation = page.Rotation; // angular correction in degrees from OcrInput.Deskew() foreach (var paragraph in page.Paragraphs) { // Pages -> Paragraphs int ParagraphNumber = paragraph.ParagraphNumber; string ParagraphText = paragraph.Text; AnyBitmap ParagraphImage = paragraph.ToBitmap(ocrInput); int ParagraphX_location = paragraph.X; int ParagraphY_location = paragraph.Y; int ParagraphWidth = paragraph.Width; int ParagraphHeight = paragraph.Height; double ParagraphOcrAccuracy = paragraph.Confidence; OcrResult.TextFlow paragrapthText_direction = paragraph.TextDirection; foreach (var line in paragraph.Lines) { // Pages -> Paragraphs -> Lines int LineNumber = line.LineNumber; string LineText = line.Text; AnyBitmap LineImage = line.ToBitmap(ocrInput); int LineX_location = line.X; int LineY_location = line.Y; int LineWidth = line.Width; int LineHeight = line.Height; double LineOcrAccuracy = line.Confidence; double LineSkew = line.BaselineAngle; double LineOffset = line.BaselineOffset; foreach (var word in line.Words) { // Pages -> Paragraphs -> Lines -> Words int WordNumber = word.WordNumber; string WordText = word.Text; AnyBitmap WordImage = word.ToBitmap(ocrInput); int WordX_location = word.X; int WordY_location = word.Y; int WordWidth = word.Width; int WordHeight = word.Height; double WordOcrAccuracy = word.Confidence; foreach (var character in word.Characters) { // Pages -> Paragraphs -> Lines -> Words -> Characters int CharacterNumber = character.CharacterNumber; string CharacterText = character.Text; AnyBitmap CharacterImage = character.ToBitmap(ocrInput); int CharacterX_location = character.X; int CharacterY_location = character.Y; int CharacterWidth = character.Width; int CharacterHeight = character.Height; double CharacterOcrAccuracy = character.Confidence; // Output alternative symbols choices and their probability. // Very useful for spellchecking OcrResult.Choice[] Choices = character.Choices; } } } } }

Published October 3, 2022

Tesseract Alternatives (2022 Update)

Introduction

Tesseract was initially created between 1985 and 1994 by HP Laboratories Bristol and HP Co. in Greeley, Colorado. More improvements were made in 1996 to move it to Windows, and it was rewritten in C++ in 1998. HP made Tesseract open source in 2005. Google has been working with it since 2006.

Tesseract OCR is a tool that falls within the Google tech stack's category of Image Analysis APIs. It can remove cluttered backgrounds automatically and can generate PDF files comparable with those produced with scanners. Tesseract uses highly-accurate optical character recognition technology that can convert scanned paper documents into searchable, digital files. It can extract text and characters from camera photos, digital images, and scanned PDF documents spanning multiple pages. Moreover, PDFs that contain typed or printed text can be converted to computer-encoded text.

There are other OCR software (both open source and proprietary, web service-based) that can all extract text from image files and PDFs. In this article, we will examine a few OCR tools that are alternatives to Tesseract OCR.

List of Tesseract Alternatives (Accuracy & Speed Improved)

Check list of alternative libraries to Tesseract Engine
Convert photographs and PDF files to searchable PDF and CSV
Use deep-learning to extract text from PDFs, photos, tables, and forms
Detect handwritten text with OCR technology
Achieve high accuracy with Tesseract alternatives

ABBYY FineReader PDF

Developed by ABBYY, ABBYY FineReader PDF is an optical character recognition software that converts image documents (such as photographs, scans, and PDF files), and screen captures into editable file formats such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Rich Text Format, HTML, PDF/A, searchable PDF, CSV, and text (plain text).

ABBYY FineReader PDF can produce PDF files directly from paper documents, from more than 25 different file types, or by publishing to a PDF printer from just about any program. Long-term archiving is enabled for PDF/A-1 through PDF/A-3, and PDF/UA makes sure that content is accessible when using assistive technology such as screen readers.

Additionally, ABBYY FineReader PDF enables experts to perform as efficiently as possible in the digital workplace. ABBYY FineReader integrates scanned papers into digital workflows, saving time and effort when managing and completing documents. You don't need to convert your PDF to edit the text, tables, or entire layout. Regardless of how the document was produced---whether digitally or directly from hard-copy, this software can process any document easily and methodically. The software can also create editable PDF files.

A desktop version of ABBYY FineReader is available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

AWS OCR

As a machine learning (ML) web service, Amazon Textract extracts text, handwriting, tables, and other data from any scanned document. It uses deep-learning to accurately and automatically extract content from scanned documents such as PDFs, photos, tables, and forms. Afterward, Amazon Textract outputs the inforamtion into an editable, organized file format.

Consider the scenario in which a company needs to transfer pertinent information from the hard copies of invoices from many firms onto Excel Spreadsheets. It is common to use data entry personnel to complete this task manually, but it often proves to be disorganized, time-consuming, and error-prone. Furthmore, other firms that make use of some OCR software solutions tend spend hours configuring their tools to extract data from their documents (which often needs updating whenever their format changes).

With Textract, companies only need to upload our invoices to the web service, and they will get the text, forms, key-value pairs, and tables from these documents in a more organized format. This eliminates the need for manual, time-consuming and expensive data-entry processes.

In addition, Amazon OCR allows you to easily add image and video analysis into your applications using proven, highly-scalable, deep-learning technology that does not require any machine learning expertise.

iText

iText is an end-user OCR program that processes scanned images using several industry-leading OCR engines. Under the terms of the open-source AGPL, you are free to use iText 7 Core and a certain number of add-ons. For alternatives, you can also choose from a variety of commercial license alternatives.

The iText Group, which makes products including iText 7 Suite and iText DITO, is a world leader in PDF technology. It creates cutting-edge, award-winning PDF software that is used by millions of customers worldwide to create digital documents for a range of uses, including invoices, credit card statements, mobile boarding passes, legal archiving, and more. This software is available as both open-source and commercial software.

The iText Group also provides the iText 7 Suite, a complete open-source PDF SDK that contains iText 7 Core along with optional add-ons for maximum freedom and produtivity.

Tencent Cloud OCR

OCR technology from Tencent Cloud can detect and identify text in photos automatically. It has reliability and average accuracy rates of over 95% for printed text and 90% for handwritten material. The OCR techology's document analysis and text recognition algorithms were developed by the Tencent YouTu Lab. It can be used in situations involving perspective distortion, erratic lighting, partial occlusion, and more. It supports both landscape and portrait modes. With improved accuracy, the technology can distinguish between Chinese text, English text, Chinese/English text, numerals, and special symbols. It offers developers a wide variety of APIs that can be called directly, as well as easy-to-use SDKs.

IronOCR

IronOCR is an OCR text recognition and document scanning app that is highly accurate and efficient. Software developers can read text from images and PDFs in .NET apps and webpages with the help of IronOCR for .NET. The software aids in text and barcode scanning of images, supports a wide range of foreign languages, and generates output as plain text or structured data. Web, console, MVC, and a variety of .NET desktop applications can all make use of Iron Software's OCR library. When used for commercial purposes, direct support from the development team is provided alongside the relevant licenses. IronOCR quickly integrates document handling functions such as image conversion, creation, editing, manipulation, compression, and image enhancement into applications.

Using the most recent Tesseract 5 engine, IronOCR can read text, barcodes, and QR codes from any PDF format. With this library, adding OCR to desktop, online, and console applications is quick and easy.
IronOCR has data-capture capabilities such as barcode scanning, document detection, and scanning, as well as data extraction from text. It converts source material, such as PDFs and images into structured data records.
A total of 127 international languages are supported by IronOCR. Custom languages and word lists are also supported.
More than 20 barcode and QR code formats may be read using IronOCR.
It supports the TIFF and GIF multi-page image formats.
It corrects poor-quality scans and photos.
It allows for multi-thread operations. It can also run one or more processes simultaneously.
Pages, paragraphs, lines, words, characters, etc. can all receive structured data output from IronOCR.
Operating systems such as Windows, Linux, macOS, and others are supported by IronOCR.
It can extract information from PDF or JPEG files and various other documents.
IronOCR offers accuracy, intelligent recognition of characters, and zonal recognition so that you can quickly create editable documents.
IronOCR batch scans documents to PDF and recognizes text in all languages automatically. Alternatively, we can manually set in which language text should be recognized automatically.

Below is the sample code to perform OCR on an image file.

using IronOcr;

var Ocr = new IronTesseract(); // nothing to configure
using (var Input = new OcrInput(@"images\image.png"))
{
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

using IronOcr;

var Ocr = new IronTesseract(); // nothing to configure
using (var Input = new OcrInput(@"images\image.png"))
{
    var Result = Ocr.Read(Input);
    Console.WriteLine(Result.Text);
}

Imports IronOcr

Private Ocr = New IronTesseract() ' nothing to configure
Using Input = New OcrInput("images\image.png")
	Dim Result = Ocr.Read(Input)
	Console.WriteLine(Result.Text)
End Using

VB C#

Click here for more tutorials on IronOCR.

Conclusion

Tesseract is easy to use and supports images and PDF documents for a variety of methods. It is provided by IronOCR in the context of the .NET Framework. Additionally, it offers a number of parameters to enhance the functionality of the Tesseract OCR library. The ability to use multiple languages simultaneously is offered across a wide range of languages. The IronOCR packages offer competitive licensing and support for all platforms at a single price. Also, it comes with one year of free updates, feature upgrades, and support from our engineering team. IronOCR is one of the best alternatives for the Tesseract developed by Google, and it can be easily implemented with just a few lines of code.

IronOCR comes with the royalty-free redistribution coverage that is required for packaged software products, SaaS and OEM. Other OCR products, in contrast, are all totally custom-selected and typically more expensive. Both products have different price points, with IronOCR starting at $749. Here are more details on the licensing and pricing. In brief, IronOCR offers more features at an overall lower cost.