OCR4Linux

OCR4Linux is a versatile text extraction tool that allows you to take a screenshot of a selected area, extract text using OCR, and copy it to the clipboard. It supports both Wayland and X11 sessions and offers multiple language support.

Note: This script is currently only made for Arch Linux. It may work on other arch-based distributions, but it has not been tested yet.

Motivation

I didn't find any easy tool in Linux that does the same thing as the PowerTool app in Windows. This motivated me to create OCR4Linux, a simple and efficient tool to capture screenshots, extract text, and copy it to the clipboard, all in one seamless process.

Features

• Screenshot Capture

  • Wayland support via grimblast
  • X11 support via scrot
  • Configurable screenshot directory

• Text Extraction

  • Automatic language detection
  • Multi-language OCR support
  • Image preprocessing for better accuracy
  • UTF-8 text output

• Clipboard Integration

  • Wayland: wl-copy and cliphist
  • X11: xclip

• Additional Features

  • Optional screenshot retention
  • Comprehensive logging system
  • Command-line interface

Requirements

System Requirements

• Arch Linux or arch-based distribution

• Python 3.x

• yay package manager (will be installed if needed)

• tesseract OCR engine

• tesseract-data-eng English language pack

• tesseract-data-ara Arabic language pack

• If you need any other language other than the above two, search for it using the command:

  sudo pacman -Ss tesseract-data-{lang}

Python Dependencies

• python-pillow
• python-pytesseract

Session-Specific Requirements

• Wayland:
  • grimblast-git
  • wl-clipboard
  • cliphist
  • rofi-wayland
• X11:
  • scrot
  • xclip
  • rofi

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/moheladwy/OCR4Linux.git
   cd OCR4Linux

2. Run the setup script to install the required packages and copy the necessary files to the configuration directory:

   chmod +x setup.sh
   ./setup.sh

Usage

1. Run the main script to take a screenshot, extract text, and copy it to the clipboard:

   chmod +x OCR4Linux.sh
   ./OCR4Linux.sh

2. The script will take a screenshot of the selected area, extract the text from the image, and copy it to the clipboard.

Command Line Arguments

---

OCR4Linux.sh

Option	Description	Default
-r	Remove screenshot after processing	false
-d DIR	Set screenshot directory	$HOME/Pictures/screenshots
-l	Keep logs	false
-h	Show help message	-

OCR4Linux.py

Option	Description	Required
image_path	Path to input image	Yes
output_path	Path to save extracted text	Yes
-l, --list-langs	List available OCR languages	No
-h, --help	Show help message	No

Examples

---

Using OCR4Linux.sh

# Basic usage
./OCR4Linux.sh

# Save logs and remove screenshot after processing
./OCR4Linux.sh -l -r

# Custom screenshot directory with logging
./OCR4Linux.sh -d ~/Documents/screenshots -l

# Show help
./OCR4Linux.sh -h

Using OCR4Linux.py

# Basic usage
python OCR4Linux.py input.png output.txt

# List available languages
python OCR4Linux.py --list-langs

# Show help
python OCR4Linux.py --help

Tips

• You can create a keyboard shortcut to run the script for easy access.

  Example for Hyprland users:

  • put the following lines in your hyprland.conf file:

    $OCR4Linux = ~/.config/OCR4Linux/OCR4Linux.sh
    bind = $mainMod SHIFT, E, exec, $OCR4Linux # OCR4Linux script
    

  Example for dwm users:

  • put the following lines in your config.h file:

    static const char *ocr4linux[] = { "sh", "-c", "~/.config/OCR4Linux/OCR4Linux.sh", NULL };
    { MODKEY | ShiftMask, XK_e, spawn, {.v = ocr4linux } },  // OCR4Linux script

Files

• OCR4Linux.py: Python script to preprocess the image and extract text using tesseract.
• OCR4Linux.sh: Shell script to take a screenshot, pass it to the python script, get the extracted text from the python script, and copy it to the clipboard.
• setup.sh: Shell script to install the required packages and copy the necessary files to the configuration directory (run this script the first time you clone the repository only).

Contributing

We welcome contributions from the community to help improve OCR4Linux and make it available for all Linux users and distributions. Whether it's reporting bugs, suggesting new features, or submitting patches, your help is greatly appreciated. Please check out our contributing guidelines to get started.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.