Installing OCRmyPDF

The easiest way to install OCRmyPDF is to follow the steps for your operating system/platform. This version may be out of date, however.

These platforms have one-liner installs:

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)	`brew install ocrmypdf`
Debian, Ubuntu	`apt install ocrmypdf`
Windows Subsystem for Linux	`apt install ocrmypdf`
Fedora	`dnf install ocrmypdf tesseract-osd`
macOS (MacPorts)	`port install ocrmypdf`
FreeBSD	`pkg install textproc/py-ocrmypdf`
Snap (snapcraft packaging)	`snap install ocrmypdf`

More detailed procedures are outlined below. If you want to do a manual install, or install a more recent version than your platform provides, read on.

Installing on Linux 

Debian and Ubuntu 22.04 or newer 

OCRmyPDF versions in Debian & Ubuntu

Users of Debian or Ubuntu may simply

apt install ocrmypdf

As indicated in the table above, Debian and Ubuntu releases may lag behind the latest version. If the version available for your platform is out of date, you could opt to install the latest version from source. See Installing HEAD revision from sources.

For full details on version availability for your platform, check the Debian Package Tracker or Ubuntu launchpad.net.

Note

OCRmyPDF for Debian and Ubuntu currently omit the JBIG2 encoder. OCRmyPDF works fine without it but will produce larger output files. All JBIG2 patents expired in 2017, so if you build jbig2enc from source, OCRmyPDF will automatically detect it on the PATH. To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

Fedora 

OCRmyPDF version

Users of Fedora may simply

dnf install ocrmypdf tesseract-osd

For full details on version availability, check the Fedora Package Tracker.

If the version available for your platform is out of date, you could opt to install the latest version from source. See Installing HEAD revision from sources.

Note

OCRmyPDF for Fedora currently omits the JBIG2 encoder. All JBIG2 patents expired in 2017. OCRmyPDF works fine without it but will produce larger output files. If you build jbig2enc from source, OCRmyPDF will automatically detect it on the PATH. To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

RHEL 9 

Prepare the environment by getting Python 3.12:

dnf install python3.12 python3.12-pip

Then, follow Requirements for pip and HEAD install to install dependencies:

dnf install ghostscript tesseract

and build ocrmypdf in virtual environment:

python3.12 -m venv .venv

To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

Note Fedora packages for language data haven’t been branched for RHEL/EPEL, but you can get traineddata files directly from tesseract and place them in /usr/share/tesseract/tessdata.

Installing the latest version on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 LTS 

Ubuntu includes an older version of OCRmyPDF - you can install that with apt install ocrmypdf. To install the latest version, we recommend using uv:

# Install system dependencies first
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install ocrmypdf

# Install uv and upgrade to the latest OCRmyPDF
pip install uv
uv pip install --user --upgrade ocrmypdf

Alternatively, use Homebrew on Linux for a full-featured installation (see below).

To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (and other older distributions)

Note

Ubuntu 20.04 is approaching end of life. Consider upgrading to Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 LTS.

For older distributions, the most convenient way to install a recent version of OCRmyPDF is to use Homebrew on Linux:

brew install ocrmypdf

See Installing with Homebrew (macOS and Linux) for more information on using Homebrew on Linux.

Arch Linux (AUR)

There is an Arch User Repository (AUR) package for OCRmyPDF.

Installing AUR packages as root is not allowed, so you must first setup a non-root user and configure sudo. The standard Docker image, archlinux/base:latest, does not have a non-root user configured, so users of that image must follow these guides. If you are using a VM image, such as the official Vagrant image, this work may already be completed for you.

Next you should install the base-devel package group. This includes the standard tooling needed to build packages, such as a compiler and binary tools.

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel

Now you are ready to install the OCRmyPDF package.

curl -O https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/ocrmypdf.tar.gz
tar xvzf ocrmypdf.tar.gz
cd ocrmypdf
makepkg -sri

At this point you will have a working install of OCRmyPDF, but the Tesseract install won’t include any OCR language data. You can install the tesseract-data package group to add all supported languages, or use that package listing to identify the appropriate package for your desired language.

sudo pacman -S tesseract-data-eng

As an alternative to this manual procedure, consider using an AUR helper. Such a tool will automatically fetch, build and install the AUR package, resolve dependencies (including dependencies on AUR packages), and ease the upgrade procedure.

If you have any difficulties with installation, check the repository package page.

Note

The OCRmyPDF AUR package currently omits the JBIG2 encoder. OCRmyPDF works fine without it but will produce larger output files. The encoder is available from the jbig2enc-git AUR package and may be installed using the same series of steps as for the installation OCRmyPDF AUR package. Alternatively, it may be built manually from source following the instructions in Installing the JBIG2 encoder. If JBIG2 is installed, OCRmyPDF 7.0.0 and later will automatically detect it.

Alpine Linux 

To install OCRmyPDF for Alpine Linux:

apk add ocrmypdf

Gentoo Linux 

To install OCRmyPDF on Gentoo Linux, use the following commands:

eselect repository enable guru
emaint sync --repo guru
emerge --ask app-text/OCRmyPDF

Other Linux packages 

See the Repology page.

In general, first install the OCRmyPDF package for your system, then optionally use the procedure Installing with Python pip to install a more recent version.

Installing with Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

Homebrew provides a full-featured OCRmyPDF installation on both macOS and Linux with all recommended dependencies. This is often the easiest way to get a complete, up-to-date installation.

brew install ocrmypdf

This includes Tesseract, Ghostscript, and all required dependencies. English language support is included by default. For other languages:

brew install tesseract-lang  # Optional: Install all language packs

Tip

For Linux users: Homebrew on Linux is an excellent choice when your distribution’s package is outdated or missing optional dependencies like jbig2enc, pngquant, or unpaper. Homebrew provides a consistent, full-featured installation that works across many Linux distributions.

Install Homebrew on Linux: https://brew.sh

Installing on macOS 

Homebrew 

See Installing with Homebrew (macOS and Linux) above - the installation is identical on macOS.

MacPorts 

OCRmyPDF is included in MacPorts:

sudo port install ocrmypdf

Note that while this will install tesseract you will need to install the appropriate tesseract language ports.

Manual installation on macOS 

These instructions are for installing a more current version of OCRmyPDF than is available from Homebrew. Note that Homebrew versions usually track releases fairly closely.

If it’s not already present, install Homebrew.

Update Homebrew and install dependencies:

brew update

Install or upgrade the required Homebrew packages, if any are missing. To do this, use brew edit ocrmypdf to obtain a recent list of Homebrew dependencies. You could also check the .workflows/build.yml.

This will include the English, French, German and Spanish language packs. If you need other languages you can optionally install them all:

brew install tesseract-lang  # Option 2: for all language packs

Install uv and OCRmyPDF:

pip install uv
uv pip install --user ocrmypdf

The command line program should now be available:

ocrmypdf --help

Installing on Windows 

Native Windows 

Note

Administrator privileges will be required for some of these steps.

You must install the following for Windows:

Python 64-bit
Tesseract 64-bit
Ghostscript 64-bit

Using the winget package manager:

winget install -e --id Python.Python.3.12
winget install -e --id UB-Mannheim.TesseractOCR

You will need to install Ghostscript manually, since it does not support automated installs anymore.

Ghostscript download page.`

(Or alternately, using the Chocolatey package manager, install the following when running in an Administrator command prompt):

choco install python3
choco install --pre tesseract
choco install pngquant (optional)

Either set of commands will install the required software. At the moment there is no single command to install Windows.

You may then use pip to install ocrmypdf. (This can performed by a user or Administrator.):

python3 -m pip install ocrmypdf

If you installed Python using WinGet, then use the following command instead:

py -m pip install ocrmypdf

and use:

py -m ocrmypdf

To start OCRmyPDF.

If you intend to use more Python software on your Windows machine, consider the use of pipx or a similar tool to create isolated Python environments for each Python software that you want to use.

OCRmyPDF will check the Windows Registry and standard locations in your Program Files for third party software it needs (specifically, Tesseract and Ghostscript). To override the versions OCRmyPDF selects, you can modify the PATH environment variable. Follow these directions to change the PATH.

Warning

32-bit Windows is not supported.

Windows Subsystem for Linux 

Install Ubuntu 22.04 for Windows Subsystem for Linux, if not already installed.
Follow the procedure to install OCRmyPDF on Ubuntu 22.04.
Open the Windows command prompt and create a symlink:

wsl sudo ln -s  /home/$USER/.local/bin/ocrmypdf /usr/local/bin/ocrmypdf

Then confirm that the expected version from PyPI ( OCRmyPDF latest released version on PyPI ) is installed:

wsl ocrmypdf --version

You can then run OCRmyPDF in the Windows command prompt or Powershell, prefixing wsl, and call it from Windows programs or batch files.

Cygwin64 

First install the the following prerequisite Cygwin packages using setup-x86_64.exe:

python311 (or later)
python3?-devel
python3?-pip
python3?-lxml
python3?-imaging

   (where 3? means match the version of python3 you installed)

gcc-g++
ghostscript
libexempi3
libexempi-devel
libffi6
libffi-devel
pngquant
qpdf
libqpdf-devel
tesseract-ocr
tesseract-ocr-devel

Then open a Cygwin terminal (i.e. mintty), run the following commands. Note that if you are using the version of pip that was installed with the Cygwin Python package, the command name will be pip3. If you have since updated pip (with, for instance pip3 install --upgrade pip) the the command is likely just pip instead of pip3:

pip3 install wheel
pip3 install ocrmypdf

The optional dependency “unpaper” that is currently not available under Cygwin. Without it, certain options such as --clean will produce an error message. However, the OCR-to-text-layer functionality is available.

Docker 

You can also Install the Docker image on Windows. Ensure that your command prompt can run the docker “hello world” container.

Installing on FreeBSD 

pkg install textproc/py-ocrmypdf

To install a more recent version, you could attempt to first install the system version with pkg, then use pip install --user ocrmypdf.

Installing the Docker image 

For some users, installing the Docker image will be easier than installing all of OCRmyPDF’s dependencies.

See Installing the Docker image for more information.

Installing with uv (recommended)

We recommend using uv for installing OCRmyPDF from PyPI. uv is a fast, modern Python package manager that provides better dependency resolution and consistent behavior across all platforms.

For best results, first install your platform’s version of ocrmypdf using the instructions elsewhere in this document to satisfy system dependencies. Then use uv to get the latest OCRmyPDF version.

# Install uv if you don't have it
pip install uv

# Install ocrmypdf in a virtual environment (recommended)
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
uv pip install ocrmypdf

# Or install globally
uv pip install --system ocrmypdf

Use ocrmypdf --version to confirm what version was installed.

Installing with pip 

If you prefer pip, you can still use it:

pip install --user ocrmypdf

(If the message appears Requirement already satisfied: ocrmypdf in..., you will need to use pip install --user --upgrade ocrmypdf.)

Installing with pipx 

Some users may prefer pipx for isolated command-line tool installations:

pipx install ocrmypdf

Or run without permanent installation:

pipx run ocrmypdf

Requirements for pip and HEAD install 

OCRmyPDF currently requires these external programs and libraries to be installed, and must be satisfied using the operating system package manager. pip cannot provide them.

Changed in version 17.0.0: Ghostscript is now optional. pypdfium2 can be used for PDF rasterization, and verapdf can validate speculative PDF/A conversion.

The following versions are required:

Python 3.11 or newer (3.12+ recommended)
Tesseract 4.1.1 or newer
One of: Ghostscript 9.54+ or pypdfium2 (Python package)
One of: Ghostscript 9.54+ or verapdf (for PDF/A output)
fpdf2 2.8 or newer (Python package)
uharfbuzz (Python package)
fonts-noto or equivalent (system package, recommended)
jbig2enc 0.29 or newer (optional)
pngquant 2.5 or newer (optional)
unpaper 6.1 (optional)

Note

For the best user experience, install both Ghostscript and pypdfium2. pypdfium2 is faster for rasterization, while Ghostscript provides is required for certain PDF/A conversions.

Dependency summary:

Feature	Option 1	Option 2	Notes
PDF rasterization	pypdfium2 (Python)	Ghostscript (binary)	pypdfium2 preferred when available
PDF/A conversion	verapdf + pikepdf	Ghostscript	verapdf validates speculative conversion
Text rendering	fpdf2 + uharfbuzz	-	Required
OCR	tesseract-ocr	`--ocr-engine none`	Can be skipped entirely

Minimum viable installation: tesseract-ocr + (pypdfium2 OR Ghostscript) + fpdf2 + uharfbuzz

Recommended installation: tesseract-ocr + pypdfium2 + Ghostscript + verapdf + fpdf2 + uharfbuzz + fonts-noto + unpaper + pngquant + jbig2enc

We recommend 64-bit versions of all software. (32-bit versions are not supported, although on Linux, they may still work.)

fpdf2 and uharfbuzz are required dependencies that provide the text layer rendering engine. fpdf2 generates the PDF text layer, while uharfbuzz provides text shaping for proper multilingual support. These replace the legacy hOCR-based renderer. Install with: pip install fpdf2 uharfbuzz

fonts-noto (or an equivalent comprehensive font package) is recommended for proper text rendering, especially for non-Latin scripts. On Debian/Ubuntu: apt install fonts-noto. On Fedora: dnf install google-noto-fonts-common. On macOS with Homebrew: brew install font-noto.

pypdfium2, if present, provides fast PDF page rasterization using the pdfium library (the same library used by Google Chrome). It is preferred over Ghostscript when available due to better performance. Install with: pip install pypdfium2

verapdf, if present, enables fast speculative PDF/A conversion. OCRmyPDF attempts to create PDF/A by adding metadata and ICC profiles using pikepdf, then validates with verapdf. If validation passes, Ghostscript is skipped entirely. See your distribution’s package manager or visit verapdf.org.

jbig2enc, if present, will be used to optimize the encoding of monochrome images. This can significantly reduce the file size of the output file. It is not required. jbig2enc is not available in some distributions due to historical patent concerns, but all JBIG2 patents expired in 2017. It can easily be built from source. To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

Warning

Lossy JBIG2 encoding (--jbig2-lossy) has been removed in v17.0.0 due to well-documented risks of character substitution errors. Only lossless JBIG2 compression is now supported.

pngquant, if present, is optionally used to optimize the encoding of PNG-style images in PDFs (actually, any that are that losslessly encoded) by lossily quantizing to a smaller color palette. It is only activated then the --optimize argument is 2 or 3.

unpaper, if present, enables the --clean and --clean-final command line options.

These are in addition to the Python packaging dependencies, meaning that unfortunately, the pip install command cannot satisfy all of them.

Installing HEAD revision from sources 

If you have git and Python 3.12 or newer installed, you can install from source. (Python 3.11 is supported but 3.12+ is recommended.) When the pip installer runs, it will alert you if dependencies are missing.

If you prefer to build every from source, you will need to build pikepdf from source. First ensure you can build and install pikepdf.

We recommend using uv to install from sources:

git clone -b main https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF.git
cd OCRmyPDF
pip install uv  # If not already installed
uv sync

This creates a virtual environment and installs all dependencies. Activate the environment to use ocrmypdf:

source .venv/bin/activate
ocrmypdf --help

Alternatively, install directly from GitHub using pip:

pip install git+https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF.git

Or, to install in editable mode allowing customization:

git clone -b main https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF.git
cd OCRmyPDF
pip install -e .

Note: ocrmypdf will only be accessible when the virtual environment is activated.

To run the program:

ocrmypdf --help

If not yet installed, the script will notify you about dependencies that need to be installed. The script requires specific versions of the dependencies. Older version than the ones mentioned in the release notes are likely not to be compatible to OCRmyPDF.

Optional Features 

OCRmyPDF provides optional features and development tools. We recommend using uv as your package manager.

Installing User Features 

User features are available as optional dependencies. Install them with uv (recommended) or pip:

# Using uv (recommended)
uv sync --extra watcher        # File watching service
uv sync --extra webservice     # Streamlit web UI
uv sync --extra watcher --extra webservice  # Multiple features

Development Tools 

Development tools use dependency groups:

# Testing infrastructure
uv sync --group test

# Documentation building
uv sync --group docs

# Enhanced Streamlit development
uv sync --group streamlit-dev

# All development groups
uv sync

Why use uv?

Modern, fast Python package manager
Required for development (testing, docs)
Better dependency resolution
Consistent across all platforms

Install uv: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh or visit https://docs.astral.sh/uv/

For development 

To install all of the development and test requirements:

git clone -b main https://github.com/ocrmypdf/OCRmyPDF.git
cd OCRmyPDF
uv sync --all-groups

To add JBIG2 encoding, see Installing the JBIG2 encoder.

Shell completions 

Completions for bash and fish are available in the project’s misc/completion folder. The bash completions are likely zsh compatible but this has not been confirmed. Package maintainers, please install these at the appropriate locations for your system.

To manually install the bash completion, copy misc/completion/ocrmypdf.bash to /etc/bash_completion.d/ocrmypdf (rename the file).

To manually install the fish completion, copy misc/completion/ocrmypdf.fish to ~/.config/fish/completions/ocrmypdf.fish.

Note on 32-bit support 

We don’t support any 32-bit system, including 32-bit Python or 32-bit Ghostscript on Windows.