> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://cajac.gitbook.io/ctf-notes/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://cajac.gitbook.io/ctf-notes/encoding-and-decoding/ocr.md).

# OCR

Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the [electronic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics) or [mechanical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine) conversion of [images](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image) of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene photo (for example the text on signs and billboards in a landscape photo) or from subtitle text superimposed on an image (for example: from a television broadcast).

## tesseract

### Installation

```bash
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr libtesseract-dev tesseract-ocr-eng
```

### Usage

```bash
tesseract -l eng image.png result_file
```

## Usage information

<details>

<summary>tesseract -h</summary>

```bash
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ tesseract -h         
Usage:
  tesseract --help | --help-extra | --version
  tesseract --list-langs
  tesseract imagename outputbase [options...] [configfile...]

OCR options:
  -l LANG[+LANG]        Specify language(s) used for OCR.
NOTE: These options must occur before any configfile.

Single options:
  --help                Show this help message.
  --help-extra          Show extra help for advanced users.
  --version             Show version information.
  --list-langs          List available languages for tesseract engine.

```

</details>

<details>

<summary>tesseract --help-extra</summary>

```bash
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ tesseract --help-extra
Usage:
  tesseract --help | --help-extra | --help-psm | --help-oem | --version
  tesseract --list-langs [--tessdata-dir PATH]
  tesseract --print-fonts-table [options...] [configfile...]
  tesseract --print-parameters [options...] [configfile...]
  tesseract imagename|imagelist|stdin outputbase|stdout [options...] [configfile...]

OCR options:
  --tessdata-dir PATH   Specify the location of tessdata path.
  --user-words PATH     Specify the location of user words file.
  --user-patterns PATH  Specify the location of user patterns file.
  --dpi VALUE           Specify DPI for input image.
  --loglevel LEVEL      Specify logging level. LEVEL can be
                        ALL, TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL or OFF.
  -l LANG[+LANG]        Specify language(s) used for OCR.
  -c VAR=VALUE          Set value for config variables.
                        Multiple -c arguments are allowed.
  --psm NUM             Specify page segmentation mode.
  --oem NUM             Specify OCR Engine mode.
NOTE: These options must occur before any configfile.

Page segmentation modes:
  0    Orientation and script detection (OSD) only.
  1    Automatic page segmentation with OSD.
  2    Automatic page segmentation, but no OSD, or OCR. (not implemented)
  3    Fully automatic page segmentation, but no OSD. (Default)
  4    Assume a single column of text of variable sizes.
  5    Assume a single uniform block of vertically aligned text.
  6    Assume a single uniform block of text.
  7    Treat the image as a single text line.
  8    Treat the image as a single word.
  9    Treat the image as a single word in a circle.
 10    Treat the image as a single character.
 11    Sparse text. Find as much text as possible in no particular order.
 12    Sparse text with OSD.
 13    Raw line. Treat the image as a single text line,
       bypassing hacks that are Tesseract-specific.

OCR Engine modes: (see https://tesseract-ocr.github.io/tessdoc/#40-with-lstm)
  0    Legacy engine only.
  1    Neural nets LSTM engine only.
  2    Legacy + LSTM engines.
  3    Default, based on what is available.

Single options:
  -h, --help            Show minimal help message.
  --help-extra          Show extra help for advanced users.
  --help-psm            Show page segmentation modes.
  --help-oem            Show OCR Engine modes.
  -v, --version         Show version information.
  --list-langs          List available languages for tesseract engine.
  --print-fonts-table   Print tesseract fonts table.
  --print-parameters    Print tesseract parameters.

```

</details>

## Resources

Optical character recognition - Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition>