socr

Multi-engine document OCR with cascading fallback and quality audit.

socr orchestrates multiple OCR engines — calling each as a CLI subprocess, auditing output quality, and falling back to a different engine when results are poor. Each engine is a standalone CLI tool (gemini-ocr, deepseek-ocr, marker-ocr, etc.) that can also be used independently.

Install

pip install socr

# With specific engine backends
pip install socr[gemini]          # Google Gemini (cloud)
pip install socr[local]           # DeepSeek + Nougat (local/free)
pip install socr[all]             # All engines

Engines are installed separately because they have different dependencies (torch, cloud SDKs, etc.). Install only what you need.

Usage

# Process a PDF
socr paper.pdf

# Choose engine
socr paper.pdf --primary gemini
socr paper.pdf --primary marker

# Save extracted figures
socr paper.pdf --save-figures

# Batch process a directory
socr batch ~/Papers/ -o ./results/
socr batch ~/Papers/ --dry-run        # preview what would be processed
socr batch ~/Papers/ --reprocess      # force reprocess all

# Check which engines are available
socr engines

How it works

PDF → Primary OCR → Quality Audit → (Fallback OCR if needed) → Markdown

1. Primary OCR — Calls the primary engine CLI on the whole PDF
2. Quality audit — Heuristic checks (word count, garbage ratio, repetition)
3. Fallback — If audit fails, tries a different engine

Each engine is a separate CLI binary. socr calls it as a subprocess, reads the output markdown, and applies the quality pipeline.

Engines

Engine	Package	Type	Notes
Gemini	gemini-ocr-cli	Cloud	Google Gemini, ~$0.0002/page
Mistral	mistral-ocr-cli	Cloud	Mistral AI
Marker	marker-ocr-cli	Local	Layout-aware (Surya + Texify)
DeepSeek	deepseek-ocr-cli	Local	Via Ollama
Nougat	nougat-ocr-cli	Local	Academic papers, Python <3.13

Check availability:

$ socr engines

  [+] gemini       cloud, ~$0.0002/page
  [+] marker       local, layout-aware (Surya + Texify)
  [+] mistral      cloud, ~$0.001/page
  [+] deepseek     local via Ollama
  [x] nougat       local, academic papers

CLI reference

socr process <PDF> [OPTIONS]
  -o, --output-dir PATH       Output directory
  --primary ENGINE             Primary OCR engine (gemini, marker, deepseek, etc.)
  --fallback ENGINE            Fallback engine
  --no-audit                   Skip quality audit
  --save-figures               Save extracted figure images
  --timeout SECONDS            Subprocess timeout (default: 300)
  --profile NAME               Load ~/.config/socr/{name}.yaml
  --config PATH                Custom YAML config file
  -q, --quiet                  Suppress non-error output
  -v, --verbose                Verbose output
  --dry-run                    List files without processing
  --reprocess                  Force reprocess already-done files

socr batch <DIR> [OPTIONS]
  Same options as process, plus:
  --limit N                    Process first N files

socr engines                   Show available engines

Output

output/<doc_stem>/
├── <doc_stem>.md        # OCR text
├── metadata.json        # Processing stats
└── figures/             # With --save-figures
    └── figure_1_page3.png

Configuration

Create ~/.config/socr/config.yaml:

primary_engine: gemini
fallback_engine: marker
timeout: 300
save_figures: false
audit_enabled: true
audit_min_words: 50

Or use profiles: ~/.config/socr/fast.yaml → socr paper.pdf --profile fast

Engine CLIs

Each backend is an independent CLI tool:

• gemini-ocr-cli — Google Gemini
• deepseek-ocr-cli — DeepSeek via Ollama
• mistral-ocr-cli — Mistral AI
• marker-ocr-cli — Marker (Surya + Texify)
• nougat-ocr-cli — Meta Nougat

License

MIT