x2y

x2y converts images to text using the tesseract OCR engine via the application's javascript API. The primary use of x2y is to convert PDF files to text files. However, x2y can convert any PNG file to text as well. Additionally, PDFs processed by x2y will also be split into PNGs (1 for each page).

Uses:

x2y is useful for batch converting folders of PDFs or PNGs to text files and splitting PDFs into multiple images.

-Batch processing scanned documents from paper, microfiche, or microfilm for text analysis or creating searchable databases.

-Converting PDFs into web content.

Installation:

$npm install x2y

x2y has the following dependancies. You must download and install each of these to use x2y.

-node.js: https://nodejs.org

-ghostscript: http://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html

-tesseract: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract/wiki

A note to Windows users, you must restart your machine after installing node, ghostscript, and tesseract.

After you have installed all prerequisite software, do the steps that follow:

1. Copy all files in x2y to the directory of your choice.

2. Open the command line on your machine and navigate to the x2y directory.

3. Run npm install a. npm will download and install all dependancies listed in the package.json file.

4. Run npm link a. npm link will create a symbolic link to the x2y folder, which will allow you to run x2y on any directory.

5. Execute x2y.

   a. In the command line, navigate to the directory of your choice.

   b. Type x2y and press enter.

   c. x2y will split your PDFs to PNGs, and use OCR to create text files from the PNGs.

Command Line Options: To see all command line options for x2y type x2y --help after installation

Thats it!