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ocr-fileformat

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Validate and transform between OCR file formats (hOCR, ALTO, PAGE, FineReader)

Screenshot GUI

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Installation

Docker

You can run the command line scripts and web interface as a Docker container, you only need Docker installed.

To start the web interface on http://localhost:8080:

docker run --rm -it -p 8080:8080 ubma/ocr-fileformat

To run the command line scripts, mount the directory containing your input files into the container's /data directory:

docker run --rm -it -v "$PWD":/data ubma/ocr-fileformat ocr-transform alto2.0 hocr somefile.alto

System-wide

To install system-wide to /usr/local:

sudo make install

To install without sudo to your home directory:

make install PREFIX=$HOME/.local

If $HOME/.local/bin is not in your PATH, add this to your shell startup file (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin $PATH"

The web application has a PHP backed. You can deploy it on any PHP-capable server by copying the web folder somewhere below the document root of your server, e.g. /var/www/html for Apache on Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo -u www-data cp -r web /var/www/html/ocr-fileformat

In this example the GUI would be available under http://localhost/ocr-fileformat/.

Usage

The project offers two functionalities, which can be accessd via a command line script (CLI), using a web interface (GUI) or in you own tools (API)

CLI

GUI

The web interface is for testing validation and transformations. You can upload a file or select an input file by URL.

API

Transformation

Transformation CLI

Usage: ocr-transform [-dl] <input-fmt> <output-fmt> [<input> [<output>]] [-- <saxon_opts>]

For example, you can transform an ALTO XML to a hOCR file with:

ocr-transform alto hocr sample.xml sample.hocr

Or convert from ALTO XML (version 2.1) to hOCR with:

ocr-transform alto2.1 hocr sample.alto sample.hocr

You can also pass arguments directly to the Saxon CLI by passing them after a double dash (--). For example, to set the foo parameter to bar:

ocr-transform alto hocr sample.xml sample.hocr -- foo=bar

Try ocr-transform -h to get an overview:

<!-- BEGIN-EVAL echo '```';./bin/ocr-transform.sh -h 2>&1;echo '```' --> 
Usage:
ocr-transform [OPTIONS] <from> <to> [<infile> [<outfile>]] [-- <script-args>]
ocr-transform [OPTIONS] <from> <to> --help-args Show script-args, and exit
ocr-transform [OPTIONS] -h|--help               Show this help, and exit
ocr-transform [OPTIONS] -v|--version            Show version, and exit
ocr-transform [OPTIONS] -L|--list               List available from/to, and exit

    Options:
        --debug   -d     Increase debug level by 1, can be repeated

    Transformations:
        abbyy hocr
        abbyy page
        alto hocr
        alto page
        alto text
        alto2.0 alto3.0
        alto2.0 alto3.1
        alto2.0 hocr
        alto2.1 alto3.0
        alto2.1 alto3.1
        alto2.1 hocr
        alto4.2 alto2.1
        gcv alto
        gcv hocr
        gcv page
        hocr alto
        hocr alto2.0
        hocr alto2.1
        hocr alto3.0
        hocr alto4.0
        hocr page
        hocr tei
        hocr text
        mybib alto3.0
        page alto
        page alto_legacy
        page hocr
        page page2019
        page text
        tei hocr
        textract page
<!-- END-EVAL -->

Transformation GUI

Select the Transform menu option. Choose a URL, an input and an output format. Click Transform.

Transformation API

The stylesheets are installed in $PREFIX/share/ocr-fileformat/xslt and can be used directly in your scripts and software. You will need to use an XSLT 2.0 capable stylesheet transformer.

Supported Transformations

From ╲ TohOCRALTOPAGEXMLTEIText
hOCR-✓✓✓✓
ALTO✓✓✓-✓
PAGEXML✓✓✓-✓
ABBYY FineReader✓-✓--
Google Cloud Vision✓✓✓--
Amazon AWS Textract--✓--
TEI✓----

Validation

<!-- BEGIN-EVAL echo '```';./bin/ocr-validate.sh -h 2>&1;echo '```' --> 
Usage:
ocr-validate [OPTIONS] <schema> <file> [<resultsFile>]
ocr-validate [OPTIONS] -h|--help       Show this help, and exit
ocr-validate [OPTIONS] -v|--version    Show version, and exit
ocr-validate [OPTIONS] -L|--list       List available schemas, and exit

    Options:
        --debug   -d     Increase debug level by 1, can be repeated

    Schemas:
        hocr
        alto-1-0 alto-1-1 alto-1-2 alto-1-3 alto-1-4 alto-2-0 alto-2-1 alto-2-2-draft alto-3-0 alto-3-1 alto-3-2-draft alto-4-0 alto-4-1 alto-4-2 alto-4-3
        abbyy-6-schema-v1 abbyy-8-schema-v2 abbyy-9-schema-v1 abbyy-10-schema-v1
        page-2009-03-16 page-2010-01-12 page-2010-03-19 page-2013-07-15 page-2016-07-15 page-2017-07-15 page-2018-07-15 page-2019-07-15
<!-- END-EVAL -->

Validation CLI

For example, to validate an XML file against the ALTO 3.1 schema:

ocr-validate alto-3-1 myFile.alto

Validation GUI

Select the Validate menu option. Choose a URL and an schema. Click Validate.

Validation API

The XSD files are installed under $PREFIX/share/ocr-fileformat/xsd

Supported Validation Formats

hOCRALTOPAGEXMLFineReaderGoogle Cloud VisionAmazon AWS Textract
Validation✓✓✓✓--

License

This is free software. You may use it under the terms of the MIT License.

During the installation process several projects are included (in ./vendor). These projects have different licenses: