winocr_cli: WinOCR Command Line Interface

A minimal command line application for converting images and PDFs to text using Windows native OCR APIs.

The application is just a wrapper around the winocr Python package.

How to use it

1. Download the executable: Download the winocr_cli.exe file from the Releases section of this repository.
2. Open Command Prompt or PowerShell: Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the winocr_cli.exe file.
3. Run the command: Use the following command syntax:

winocr_cli.exe -l "en" -i \path\to\image.png -o \path\to\output.txt

• Replace \path\to\image.png with the path to your input image file.
• Replace \path\to\output.txt with the path where you want to save the output text file.
• Optionally, you can specify the language parameter -l (default is "en").
• To process multiple input and output files, you can specify multiple pairs of input-output using the same command format:

winocr_cli.exe -l "en" -i image1.png image2.png -o output1.txt output2.txt

Once the command is executed, the output text file(s) will be generated at the specified location(s).

How to build it from source

1. Clone the repository.
2. Install dependencies: Navigate to the cloned directory and install the required dependencies.
3. Run the script: In the directory root, run this script using Python:

python winocr_cli.py -l "en" -i \path\to\image.png -o \path\to\output.txt

If you are using venv on Windows, in Powershell, you may have to run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope Process before running venv\Scripts\activate.

If the script runs as expected, you can now build the app.

4. Build the app: Run pyinstaller --onefile winocr_cli.py to build the executable.

If you get an error saying: The term 'pyinstaller' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program., try running python -m PyInstaller --onefile winocr_cli.py instead.

Dependencies

(Required) For building the app -

• winocr
• pillow (PIL)
• pdf2image
• pyinstaller (for creating the executable file)

(Optional) For running the app -

• poppler (for handling PDFs; run winocr_cli.exe --setup to download poppler in the default location)

Note

• Ensure that the input image file exists and is accessible from the command line.
• The application bundles all necessary dependencies, so there's no need to install them separately.
• The executable might trigger security warnings on your machine. Feel free to bypass them to use the app. Or build it yourself from source.
• Language support is constrained by the languages available on your Windows installation.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you'd like to contribute to winocr_cli, please submit a pull request detailing the changes you made.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.