Agent skill · writing content · claude-office-skills
PDF OCR Extraction
Extract text from scanned PDFs using optical character recognition
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific commands and structured output formats for OCR processing that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 4k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-01-31. 363 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
PDF OCR Extraction Extract text from scanned documents and image-based PDFs using OCR technology. Overview This skill helps you: Extract text from scanned documents Make image PDFs searchable Digitize paper documents Process handwritten text (limited) Batch process multiple documents How to Use Basic OCR With Options Document Types OCR Quality by Document Type Document Type Expected Quality Tips --------------- ------------------ ------ Typed documents ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 95%+ Best results Printed books ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 90%+ Watch for aging Forms ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 85%+ Check boxes may need manual Tables/Data ⭐⭐⭐ 80%+ Structure may need fixing Handwritten (neat) ⭐⭐ 60-80% Variable results Handwritten (cursive) ⭐ 30-60% Often needs manual review Mixed content ⭐⭐⭐ 75%+ Depends on complexity Output Formats Plain Text Extraction Structured Extraction Searchable PDF Output Pre-Processing Tips Image Quality Checklist Before OCR, ensure: [ ] Resolution: 300 DPI minimum (600 for small text) [ ] Contrast: Clear black text on white background [ ] Alignment: Document is straight (not skewed) [ ] Completeness: No cut-off edges [ ] Cleanliness: No stains, marks, or shadows Common Pre-Processing Steps Issue Solution ------- ---------- Low resolution Upscale image first Skewed/rotated Auto-deskew Poor contrast Adjust levels/threshold Noise/specks Apply noise reduction Shadows Flatten lighting Color document Convert to grayscale Language Support Supported Languages Excellent: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian Good: Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Japanese, Korean Moderate: Arabic, Hebrew (RTL support), Hindi Basic: Many others with varying quality Multi-Language Documents Handling Specific Content Forms and Checkboxes Tables Handwritten Text Batch Processing Batch OCR Job Tool Recommendations Cloud Services Google Cloud Vision (excellent accuracy) Amazon Textract (good for forms) Azure Computer Vision (balanced) Adobe Acrobat (integrated) Desktop Software ABBYY FineReader (best accuracy) Adobe Acrobat Pro (reli …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills claude-office-skills/pdf-ocr