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3. Read Scanned Document

How to Read Scanned Documents Using IronOCR

by Curtis Chau

Many PDFs contain non-searchable, image-based text. IronOCR can convert this into searchable content, making it easier to locate specific information and enhancing document accessibility, especially for individuals with visual impairments.

Instead of manually copying or recreating text and images, automated extraction ensures accuracy and efficiency. This is particularly useful for research, legal documents, and content creation, where reusing specific portions of PDFs is common.

Businesses can extract critical data from PDFs for analysis or system integration, streamlining workflows. Designers and marketers can also extract images for enhancement and reuse in various projects.

In this tutorial, we'll explore the OcrPdfInput methods, covering the available options and parameters to showcase how IronOCR simplifies PDF text and image extraction for various applications.

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First Step:

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To use this function, you must also install the IronOcr.Extension.AdvancedScan package.

Read Scanned Documents Example

To extract text from all images within a document, use the ReadDocument method. This method processes the document and returns an object containing the extracted text, which can be accessed through the Text property. The example below demonstrates how to use this method with a sample TIFF file.

Input

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)

Output

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.