gImageReader

What gImageReader is

gImageReader is a free desktop front end to Tesseract OCR, available for Linux and Windows. It brings together document and image import, text recognition, and tools for reviewing the recognized text. You can open PDFs and images from disk, import from a scanning device or clipboard, or use screenshots. Multiple images and documents can be processed in one batch. Recognition areas can be selected manually or detected automatically. The recognized text appears beside its source image, where it can be post-processed, including with spellchecking. Results can be saved as plain text or hOCR documents, and gImageReader can create PDFs from hOCR documents. The project lists international language support; language definitions can be chosen in its integrated tessdata manager or installed manually. The Windows installer includes the required Tesseract files. The project is open source under GPL-3.0, and its Free plan costs nothing. For help, the project points users to its issue tracker, maintainer email, and FAQ.

Who it suits

gImageReader suits Linux and Windows users who need desktop OCR for PDFs or images, including batch processing and review of recognized text. It is also suitable for users who want an open-source GPL-3.0 application with multiple input routes.

Getting started

1. Open the gImageReader project page on GitHub.
2. Install the application for Linux or Windows.
3. On Windows, use the installer that bundles the necessary Tesseract files.
4. Select language definitions in the integrated tessdata manager or install them manually.
5. Import PDFs or images from disk, a scanning device, the clipboard, or screenshots.
6. Set recognition areas and review the text beside the source image.

Verdict

Choose gImageReader for free desktop OCR on Linux or Windows, especially if you need batch processing and several ways to import files. Look elsewhere if you need Word export or a project with a published security policy.