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name: extracting-with-ocr description: Use when extracting text from scanned PDFs, photographed pages, or images that have no embedded text layer. Covers OCR backends, language packs, force-OCR, and performance tuning.

Extracting with OCR

Use this when a document is image-based: scanned PDFs, photographed pages, screenshots, JPEG/PNG/TIFF with text. Kreuzberg auto-OCRs raster images and auto-detects PDFs that lack a text layer. Force it on when extraction returned empty/garbled text from a PDF that "looks" textual.

When to force OCR

• Extraction returned an empty content field, but the file opens visually.
• The PDF text layer is junk (copy-paste from a viewer produces gibberish).
• You want consistent output across mixed scanned + digital PDFs.

kreuzberg extract scan.pdf --force-ocr=true
kreuzberg extract scan.pdf --ocr=true --ocr-language eng

If a page has an unreliable text layer, --force-ocr=true re-rasterizes and runs OCR on every page.

Backends

Tesseract is the default and ships with the CLI — no extra install. Other backends are opt-in:

Backend	Flag	Install	Notes
Tesseract	--ocr-backend tesseract (default)	bundled	Best general-purpose, 100+ languages via tessdata.
PaddleOCR	--ocr-backend paddle-ocr	bundled (ONNX Runtime)	Strong on Asian scripts. Not available on WASM or Windows.
EasyOCR	--ocr-backend easyocr	Python binding (pip install kreuzberg[easyocr])	Heavier model. CUDA accel via easyocr_kwargs={"gpu": True}.
VLM (vision)	layout + a multimodal LLM via config	configured per backend	Use when OCR fails on dense or handwritten layouts.

Pick Tesseract first. Switch only when accuracy is unacceptable.

Language packs

Tesseract uses ISO 639-2 codes. Default is eng. Combine with +:

kreuzberg extract menu.jpg --ocr=true --ocr-language "eng+deu"
kreuzberg extract bilingual.pdf --ocr-language "eng+jpn"
kreuzberg extract any.pdf --ocr-language all   # all installed packs

Install missing packs at the OS level:

# macOS
brew install tesseract-lang

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr-deu tesseract-ocr-jpn tesseract-ocr-fra

# Specific lang only
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr-<iso639-2>

Kreuzberg fails fast with a helpful error if you request a language pack that is not installed. Read the error — it names the missing file.

Useful flags

• --ocr=true — enable OCR (auto-enabled for images and scanned PDFs).
• --force-ocr=true — OCR every page even if a text layer exists.
• --disable-ocr=true — never OCR (extract embedded text only or fail).
• --ocr-language <lang> — single code or +-joined list, or all.
• --ocr-backend <tesseract|paddle-ocr|easyocr> — pick backend.
• --ocr-auto-rotate=true — pre-rotate via the auto-rotate model.
• --acceleration <cpu|coreml|cuda|tensorrt|auto> — ONNX accelerator for paddle-ocr / auto-rotate / layout models.

Performance tips

• Cache is on by default. Repeated extraction of the same file + config is instant. Do not pass --no-cache=true unless you have a reason.
• For batch OCR, use kreuzberg batch *.pdf --ocr=true — internal worker pool parallelizes across CPU cores. Cap with --max-concurrent N if memory is tight.
• Raise --target-dpi (default 300) only for low-resolution scans. Higher DPI is slower; 200 is usually enough for printed text.
• Enable --ocr-auto-rotate=true only when pages may be rotated; the classifier adds latency.
• On Apple Silicon, --acceleration coreml typically beats CPU for paddle-ocr and layout detection.

Config file alternative

Long flag chains belong in kreuzberg.toml — auto-discovered from cwd upward.

force_ocr = true
output_format = "markdown"

[ocr]
backend = "tesseract"
language = "eng+deu"
auto_rotate = true

Then just run:

kreuzberg extract document.pdf

Common failure modes

• "missing tessdata" — install the language pack at OS level (see above).
• Empty content on a scanned PDF without --force-ocr — the file has a bogus zero-width text layer. Re-run with --force-ocr=true.
• OCR on a rotated page — add --ocr-auto-rotate=true or pre-rotate.
• Garbled CJK output — ensure the right language pack is installed and passed via --ocr-language; consider paddle-ocr for Chinese/Japanese.

See references/cli-reference.md and references/configuration.md in the sibling kreuzberg skill for the full flag and config schema.