README.md

Scribe.js

Scribe.js is a JavaScript library that performs OCR and extracts text from images and PDFs.

Common use cases:

1. Recognize text from images.
2. Extract text from user-uploaded .pdf files.
   1. If the .pdf file is already text-native, scribe.js can extract the existing text.
   2. If the .pdf file is image-native, scribe.js can recognize text using OCR.
3. Write .pdf files that include a high-quality invisible text layer.
   1. scribe.js can insert text into an existing .pdf file, making it searchable.

Scribe.js is a library intended for developers. End users who want to scan documents should see the officially-supported GUI at scribeocr.com (repo here).

Setup

Install from npm by running the following:

npm i scribe.js-ocr

Scribe.js is written in JavaScript using ESM, so can be imported directly from browser or Node.js JavaScript code without a build step.

// Import statement in browser:
import scribe from 'node_modules/scribe.js-ocr/scribe.js';
// Import statement for Node.js:
import scribe from 'scribe.js-ocr';

// Basic usage
scribe.extractText(['https://tesseract.projectnaptha.com/img/eng_bw.png'])
	.then((res) => console.log(res))

When using Scribe.js in the browser, all files must be served from the same origin as the file importing Scribe.js. This means that importing Scribe.js from a CDN will not work. There is no UMD version.

Templates

The following are template repos showing how Scribe.js can be used within various frameworks/build systems.

• Browser with ESM (no build): https://github.com/scribeocr/scribe.js-example-esm-browser
• Browser with Next.js: https://github.com/scribeocr/scribe.js-example-next.js
• Browser with Webpack 5: https://github.com/scribeocr/scribe.js-example-webpack5
• Browser with Vue.js v2: https://github.com/scribeocr/scribe.js-example-vue2

Contributions are appreciated--if you are using Scribe.js within a framework not listed below, consider making a basic repo and adding to this list with a PR, especially if non-obvious steps were required.

Scribe.js vs. Tesseract.js

Considering whether Scribe.js or Tesseract.js is better for your project? Read this article.

Documentation

• Basic Browser Examples
• Basic Node.js Examples
• Scribe.js vs. Tesseract.js Comparison
• API

Projects and Examples

The following are examples and projects built using Scribe.js. Additional examples can be found in the examples directory.

• Projects
  • Scribe OCR: officially supported GUI front-end for Scribe.js
    • Site at scribeocr.com, repo at github.com/scribeocr/scribeocr

If you have a project or example repo that uses Scribe.js, feel free to add it to this list using a pull request. Examples submitted should be well documented such that new users can run them; projects should be functional and actively maintained.

Contributing

To work on a local copy, simply clone with --recurse-submodules and install. Please run the automated tests before making a PR.

## Clone the repo, including recursively cloning submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:scribeocr/scribe.js.git
cd scribe.js

## Install dependencies
npm i

## Make changes
## [...]

## Run automated tests before making PR
npm run test