Read Scanned Documents in C# Using IronOCR

What Does the Input Document Look Like?

How Do I Implement the OCR Code?

:path=/static-assets/ocr/content-code-examples/how-to/read-scanned-document-read-scanned-document.cs

using IronOcr;
using System;

// Instantiate OCR engine
var ocr = new IronTesseract();

// Configure OCR engine
using var input = new OcrInput();
input.LoadImage("potter.tiff");

// Perform OCR
OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);

Console.WriteLine(result.Text);

Imports IronOcr
Imports System

' Instantiate OCR engine
Private ocr = New IronTesseract()

' Configure OCR engine
Private input = New OcrInput()
input.LoadImage("potter.tiff")

' Perform OCR
Dim result As OcrResult = ocr.ReadDocument(input)

Console.WriteLine(result.Text)

What Results Can I Expect from OCR Processing?

If you need to perform OCR on a PDF file instead, simply replace the LoadImage method with LoadPdf. This allows IronOCR to process and extract text from scanned PDFs in the same way.

Processing Multi-Page Documents

For documents with multiple pages, IronOCR efficiently handles batch processing:

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();

// Load a multi-page PDF
input.LoadPdf("multi-page-document.pdf");

// Process all pages
OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);

// Access individual page results
foreach (var page in result.Pages)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Page {page.PageNumber}: {page.Text}");
}

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();

// Load a multi-page PDF
input.LoadPdf("multi-page-document.pdf");

// Process all pages
OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);

// Access individual page results
foreach (var page in result.Pages)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"Page {page.PageNumber}: {page.Text}");
}

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Optimizing OCR Performance

The quality of your scanned documents directly impacts OCR accuracy. IronOCR includes built-in image optimization filters to enhance text recognition:

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();

// Load and enhance image quality
input.LoadImage("low-quality-scan.jpg");
input.Deskew();  // Correct image skew
input.DeNoise(); // Remove background noise
input.Binarize(); // Convert to black and white

OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();

// Load and enhance image quality
input.LoadImage("low-quality-scan.jpg");
input.Deskew();  // Correct image skew
input.DeNoise(); // Remove background noise
input.Binarize(); // Convert to black and white

OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);

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Creating Searchable PDFs

One of the most valuable features when processing scanned documents is the ability to create searchable PDFs. This maintains the original document appearance while adding a text layer:

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();
input.LoadPdf("scanned-document.pdf");

// Process and save as searchable PDF
OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);
result.SaveAsSearchablePdf("searchable-output.pdf");

using IronOcr;

var ocr = new IronTesseract();
using var input = new OcrInput();
input.LoadPdf("scanned-document.pdf");

// Process and save as searchable PDF
OcrResult result = ocr.ReadDocument(input);
result.SaveAsSearchablePdf("searchable-output.pdf");

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Processing Legacy Documents

Many organizations have archives of scanned documents in older formats. IronOCR handles these efficiently, including support for multi-page TIFF files commonly used in document management systems.

Language Support

While this example focuses on English text, IronOCR supports over 125 international languages. This makes it ideal for processing multilingual documents or documents in non-English languages.