Extract text from scanned PDFs using optical character recognition
npx skills add https://github.com/claude-office-skills/skills --skill PDF OCR Extraction
Extract text from scanned documents and image-based PDFs using OCR technology.
This skill helps you:
"Extract text from this scanned PDF"
"OCR this document image"
"Make this PDF searchable"
"Extract text from pages 1-10, English language"
"OCR this document, preserve layout"
"Extract and output as structured data"
| 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 |
## OCR Result: [Document Name]
**Pages Processed**: [X]
**Language**: [Detected/Specified]
**Confidence**: [X]%
---
[Extracted text content here]
---
### Notes
- [Any issues or uncertainties]
- [Characters that may be incorrect]
## OCR Extraction: [Document Name]
### Document Info
| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Title | [Extracted or inferred] |
| Date | [If found] |
| Author | [If found] |
### Content by Section
#### [Header 1]
[Content under this header]
#### [Header 2]
[Content under this header]
### Tables Found
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| [Data] | [Data] | [Data] |
### Uncertain Text
| Page | Original | Confidence | Possible |
|------|----------|------------|----------|
| 3 | "teh" | 70% | "the" |
| 5 | "l0ve" | 65% | "love" |
## OCR to Searchable PDF
**Source**: [filename.pdf]
**Output**: [filename_searchable.pdf]
### Processing Summary
| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Pages | [X] |
| Words extracted | [Y] |
| Average confidence | [Z]% |
| Processing time | [T] seconds |
### Quality Report
- [X] pages with 95%+ confidence
- [Y] pages with 80-94% confidence
- [Z] pages with <80% confidence (review recommended)
### Searchability
✅ Document is now text-searchable
✅ Original images preserved
✅ Text layer added behind images
Before OCR, ensure:
| 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 |
"OCR this document, detect language automatically"
"Extract text, primary: English, secondary: Chinese"
## Form Extraction: [Form Name]
### Field Values
| Field | Value | Confidence |
|-------|-------|------------|
| Name | John Smith | 98% |
| Date | 01/15/2026 | 95% |
| Address | 123 Main St | 92% |
### Checkboxes
| Question | Checked |
|----------|---------|
| Option A | ☑️ Yes |
| Option B | ☐ No |
| Option C | ☑️ Yes |
### Signature
[Signature detected on page X - cannot extract text]
## Table Extraction
### Table 1 (Page 2)
| Header A | Header B | Header C |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Value 1 | Value 2 | Value 3 |
| Value 4 | Value 5 | Value 6 |
**Table confidence**: 85%
**Note**: Column 3 may have alignment issues
## Handwritten Text Extraction
**Legibility Assessment**: [Good/Fair/Poor]
**Recommended**: Manual review
### Extracted Text (Confidence: 65%)
[Extracted text with uncertain words marked]
### Uncertain Words
| Original | Best Guess | Alternatives |
|----------|------------|--------------|
| [image] | "meeting" | "meeting", "meaning" |
| [image] | "Tuesday" | "Tuesday", "Thursday" |
⚠️ **Low confidence extraction - please verify manually**
## Batch OCR Processing
**Folder**: [Path]
**Total Documents**: [X]
**Status**: [In Progress/Complete]
### Results
| File | Pages | Confidence | Status |
|------|-------|------------|--------|
| doc1.pdf | 5 | 96% | ✅ Complete |
| doc2.pdf | 12 | 88% | ✅ Complete |
| doc3.pdf | 3 | 72% | ⚠️ Review |
| doc4.pdf | 8 | - | ❌ Failed |
### Issues
- doc3.pdf: Pages 2-3 have handwriting
- doc4.pdf: File corrupted
### Summary
- Successful: [X]
- Need Review: [Y]
- Failed: [Z]
Comprehensive document creation, editing, and analysis with support for tracked changes, comments, formatting preservation, and text extraction. When Claude needs to work with professional documents (.docx files) for: (1) Creating new documents, (2) Modifying or editing content, (3) Working with tracked changes, (4) Adding comments, or any other document tasks
Comprehensive PDF manipulation toolkit for extracting text and tables, creating new PDFs, merging/splitting documents, and handling forms. When Claude needs to fill in a PDF form or programmatically process, generate, or analyze PDF documents at scale.
Presentation creation, editing, and analysis. When Claude needs to work with presentations (.pptx files) for: (1) Creating new presentations, (2) Modifying or editing content, (3) Working with layouts, (4) Adding comments or speaker notes, or any other presentation tasks
Create beautiful visual art in .png and .pdf documents using design philosophy. You should use this skill when the user asks to create a poster, piece of art, design, or other static piece. Create original visual designs, never copying existing artists' work to avoid copyright violations.
Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart, rotating pages, adding watermarks, creating new PDFs, filling PDF forms, encrypting/decrypting PDFs, extracting images, and OCR on scanned PDFs to make them searchable. If the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one, use this skill.
Use this skill whenever the user wants to create, read, edit, or manipulate Word documents (.docx files). Triggers include: any mention of 'Word doc', 'word document', '.docx', or requests to produce professional documents with formatting like tables of contents, headings, page numbers, or letterheads. Also use when extracting or reorganizing content from .docx files, inserting or replacing images in documents, performing find-and-replace in Word files, working with tracked changes or comments, or converting content into a polished Word document. If the user asks for a 'report', 'memo', 'letter', 'template', or similar deliverable as a Word or .docx file, use this skill. Do NOT use for PDFs, spreadsheets, Google Docs, or general coding tasks unrelated to document generation.
Use this skill any time a .pptx file is involved in any way — as input, output, or both. This includes: creating slide decks, pitch decks, or presentations; reading, parsing, or extracting text from any .pptx file (even if the extracted content will be used elsewhere, like in an email or summary); editing, modifying, or updating existing presentations; combining or splitting slide files; working with templates, layouts, speaker notes, or comments. Trigger whenever the user mentions \"deck,\" \"slides,\" \"presentation,\" or references a .pptx filename, regardless of what they plan to do with the content afterward. If a .pptx file needs to be opened, created, or touched, use this skill.
Create and edit Obsidian Flavored Markdown with wikilinks, embeds, callouts, properties, and other Obsidian-specific syntax. Use when working with .md files in Obsidian, or when the user mentions wikilinks, callouts, frontmatter, tags, embeds, or Obsidian notes.
Take claude-office-skills/pdf ocr extraction from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal
use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.
The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the
same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.