# Image to Text OCR API — Bulk, 27 Languages, No Google (`poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr`) Actor

Use this when you need the text inside an image (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WebP, BMP, GIF) via OCR in 27 languages. $0.0015/image with text; blank images free. Input: {"url":"https://example.com/receipt.jpg"}. Output: text, markdown, ocrConfidence, words, hasText. Bulk URLs.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr.md
- **Developed by:** [Isaac](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$1.50 / 1,000 image with texts

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Image to Text OCR API: Bulk, 27 Languages, No Google

**Extract text from thousands of images in one run.** Paste image URLs and get clean text, Markdown, a confidence score and word counts for each one. It uses the open-source **Tesseract 5** OCR engine running inside the Actor. It does **not scrape Google Lens**, so it isn't hit by rate limits, captchas or sudden breakage.

- 🖼️ **Formats:** PNG, JPEG, **multi-page TIFF**, WebP, BMP and GIF. Google Drive and Dropbox share links work too
- 🌍 **27 OCR languages:** English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean. Mix several in one run
- 📊 **Confidence score** per image (0–100), so you can route low-quality scans to a human
- 💸 **Pay only for images where text is found.** Blank images, broken links and unsupported files are free. No start fee
- 🔒 **Private:** images are processed in your run's container and deleted straight away

### What can I use it for?

- Digitising **receipts, invoices, forms, labels and signs**
- Pulling text from **screenshots, memes, slides and product photos** for search or moderation
- Feeding **AI agents and RAG pipelines** with text from images
- Bulk-indexing scanned archives (multi-page TIFF)

### Input example

```json
{
  "urls": ["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png"],
  "ocrLanguages": ["eng", "deu"],
  "outputFormat": "both"
}
```

### Output example

```json
{
  "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png",
  "success": true,
  "hasText": true,
  "ocrConfidence": 89.9,
  "words": 66,
  "text": "The (quick) [brown] {fox} jumps!\nOver the $43,456.78 <lazy> #90 dog ...",
  "markdown": "The (quick) [brown] {fox} jumps! ...",
  "durationMs": 1630
}
```

### Pricing

**$0.0015 per image with text ($1.50 per 1,000 images).** Pay-per-event, no subscription and no start fee. You're charged once per image where OCR found text, however many frames a TIFF has. Set **Maximum cost per run** and the Actor stops cleanly at your limit.

#### How does the price compare?

Price for **1,000 images**, including start fees for one run, from each Actor's public Apify Store pricing (checked 19 October 2026):

| Actor | Per image | Start fee | 1,000 images |
|---|---|---|---|
| **This Actor** | **$0.0015** | none | **$1.50** |
| keyman98/image-pdf-ocr | $0.002 | $0.00005 | $2.00 |
| gochujang/image-ocr-extractor | $0.002 | $0.001 | $2.00 |
| steadydata/image-ocr-text | $0.003 | none | $3.00 |
| zenomastro/image-ocr-text-extractor | $0.005 | $0.001 | $5.00 |
| s-r/google-lens-ocr | $0.006 | $0.005 | $6.01 |

### Use it from the API

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/poised_beardlichen~image-to-text-ocr/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png"]}'
```

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr").call(run_input={"urls": ["https://example.com/receipt.jpg"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["ocrConfidence"], item["text"])
```

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give Claude, Cursor or any MCP client the ability to read images through the [Apify MCP server](https://mcp.apify.com):

```json
{ "mcpServers": { "apify": {
  "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr",
  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" } } } }
```

### Tips for best results

- Pick only the languages in your images. 1–3 languages are faster and more accurate.
- Images with text at least about 20 px tall give the best results. Very small or blurry text lowers the confidence score.
- Handwriting is not well supported, because Tesseract is built for printed text.

### FAQ

**Is it a Google Lens scraper?** No. OCR runs locally with Tesseract 5 (LSTM), so results are consistent and it doesn't break when Google changes its pages.

**Can it read PDFs?** Use our [PDF to Text & Markdown with OCR](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/pdf-to-text-markdown-ocr) Actor for PDFs and DOCX. It also handles scanned PDFs.

**What if no text is found?** You get `hasText: false` and are not charged.

**Is there a size limit?** 50 MB per image by default, adjustable up to 500 MB.

### Calling it from an AI agent or a script (async pattern)

A single image usually finishes in under 20 seconds. The Apify MCP server waits only about 30–45 seconds for a run before it returns. So for batches, slow pages, or whenever a call returns before the run is done, start the run and fetch the results afterwards rather than waiting on it:

1. **Start the run:** `POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/poised_beardlichen~image-to-text-ocr/runs` with input such as `{"url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png"}`. The response contains `data.id` (the run ID) and `data.defaultDatasetId`.
2. **Wait for it to finish:** poll `GET https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/<runId>?waitForFinish=60` until `status` is `SUCCEEDED`.
3. **Fetch the results:** `GET https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<defaultDatasetId>/items?clean=true`.

Send your token as `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>`. Through MCP, if the call returns a run ID instead of results, use the server's run-status and dataset tools (e.g. `get-actor-run`, then `get-dataset-items`) with that ID. For small, quick jobs you can use the synchronous endpoint `POST /v2/acts/poised_beardlichen~image-to-text-ocr/run-sync-get-dataset-items` instead, which waits for up to 300 seconds.

### Other tools by us

- [PDF to Text & Markdown with OCR](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/pdf-to-text-markdown-ocr): PDFs, DOCX and scans to clean, LLM-ready text.
- [Website Screenshot & PDF API](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/website-screenshot-pdf): bulk screenshots and PDFs with cookie banners removed.
- [Bulk Email Verifier & Validator](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/email-verifier-bulk): MX, disposable, role and typo checks at $0.30 per 1,000.
- [Bulk PageSpeed & Lighthouse Checker](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/pagespeed-lighthouse-checker): Lighthouse scores, Core Web Vitals and top fixes for many URLs on mobile and desktop, from $0.005 per audit.
- [Website Screenshot & PDF for AI Agents](https://apify.com/poised_beardlichen/website-screenshot-pdf-agent): a lightweight copy of the screenshot tool for agents and one-off calls (no Standby). Same prices, starting at $0.0015 per screenshot.

### Support

Found an image that reads poorly? Open an issue on the **Issues** tab with the URL.

# Actor input Schema

## `url` (type: `string`):

Shortcut for one image URL, e.g. "https://example.com/receipt.jpg". Combined with the list below; provide at least one of the two.

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Direct links to images (PNG, JPEG, TIFF incl. multi-page, WebP, BMP, GIF). Google Drive and Dropbox share links work too. Add as many as you like. Use "url" instead for a single item.

## `ocrLanguages` (type: `array`):

Language(s) of scanned text. Pick 1-3 for best accuracy and speed; English is used if empty.

## `outputFormat` (type: `string`):

Markdown keeps headings, lists and paragraphs (ideal for LLMs, RAG and vector databases). Plain text keeps the original line breaks.

## `maxFramesPerImage` (type: `integer`):

Only the first N frames of multi-page TIFF or animated GIF files are read. 0 = all.

## `maxFileSizeMb` (type: `integer`):

Larger files are skipped (not charged).

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many documents to download and convert at the same time.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png",
    "https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/test/raw/main/testing/phototest.tif"
  ],
  "ocrLanguages": [
    "eng",
    "deu",
    "fra"
  ],
  "outputFormat": "both",
  "maxFramesPerImage": 50,
  "maxFileSizeMb": 50,
  "maxConcurrency": 4
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png",
        "https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/test/raw/main/testing/phototest.tif"
    ],
    "ocrLanguages": [
        "eng",
        "deu",
        "fra"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png",
        "https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/test/raw/main/testing/phototest.tif",
    ],
    "ocrLanguages": [
        "eng",
        "deu",
        "fra",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tesseract-ocr/tessdoc/main/images/eurotext.png",
    "https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/test/raw/main/testing/phototest.tif"
  ],
  "ocrLanguages": [
    "eng",
    "deu",
    "fra"
  ]
}' |
apify call poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,poised_beardlichen/image-to-text-ocr"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/aEiX03oLLiMxS806R/builds/Nps0cpsWPImnf5Bt6/openapi.json