I run Debian 9 on amd64 with 1tb disk and 8gb ram. I have used Debian for many years without problems but 9 has defeated me. Previous versions ran ocrfeeder. Now I can only get tesseract which is plainly a pain. The help file is no help at all and apparently it can only read tiff files. No software I have will save .tiff though I can use convert from the command line.
I installed a new 9 because it used more space than I had in /var. I usually partition manually because the auto partition skimped on boot or root, I forget which, 9 won't install on a manually partitioned disk and as I know nothing about LVM or LVR, whichever is is I had to let the programme do it. 9 does not support my Canon Scanner so I have had to buy a new one.
I downloaded gocr but it won't install.
Is there a usable ocr programme or do I try another distro.

You could install ocrfeeder from source: https://github.com/GNOME/ocrfeeder

OP, if you haven't installed from sources before, here's good intro: https://www.linux.com/news/how-insta...-source-linux/

It's not complicated, unless you have to hunt for missing dependencies.

I would love to but I can't. I have downloaded it from Git and also a deb from the website. Neither work. The deb is for a much earlier version of Debian and needs pythoocanvas which doesn't exist. configure works but make doesn't. I have tried all the make options but no luck. The programme offers an install-sh but the command line doesn't recognise that as a command. Copying it to the command line produces a lot of activity by unfortunately closes the terminal when it has finished so I don't know what happened. The log file when I finally managed to open it was not helpful
I tried gimagereader but that won't install either. I am not savvy enough to use tesseract from the command line. The man page is not in the least helpful and one would need to be a skilled programmer to use it.
I am thinking of installing an earlier version of Debian which offers ocrfeeder. Alternatively Ubuntu and Mint offer a series of commands to install ocrfeeder from source.
I have briefly used Ubuntu but found it difficult and unstable. I could try Mint or Suse and have disks for both.

Regards,

Alaric

tesseract works with png for me, but definatly not 100% accurate


I had a very quick look at the ocrfeeder
I *might* be able to package it
I'll see if I can do a straight compile first

in the meantime
https://blends.debian.org/accessibility/tasks/ocr

managed to build it in the end

but,
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...build/14348024
is much easier

its the bionic version ( the ubuntu version of stretch )

if not, I can guide you with compiling it from source
trouble is you need to install 100s of mb worth of packages to compile it

Thanks. I had already tried the deb but it is not installable. apt install -f with the file name returns an error as under
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
ocrfeeder : Depends: python-enchant but it is not installable
Depends: python-sane but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-gtkspell3-3.0 but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-goocanvas-2.0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Sorry I said a bit more but it didn't post. I installed tesseract but the man instructions didn't work. They were accepted but there was no output.
I need ocr and Debian 9.9 seems to be short of a few files. I have cds for most distros and if I have to I can try them.
9.9 forced me to buy a new scanner. It took an age to install and only works marginally. I don't look forward to another session on a new distro that I am not familiar with.

really ?

what version of Debian do you have?

cat /etc/debian_version

hmm, well I have 9.9 in lxc, it installed those dependencies no problem

wait you included the file with the install -f?

no try
on its own

I have 9.9 according to the control centre. I have done dist-upgrade and it reports nothing to upgrade. I downloaded it from the website and copied it to a cd and installed with a few problems. As I said, I usually manually partition because one install using auto ran short in either boot or root, I can't remember which. 9.9 would not install on a manually partitioned disk and I had to use auto with LVR or LVM, whichever it is. I don't know enough about that to try and do it manually.
I don't want to ditch Debian. I have got used to it and up to 9.9 I found it easy to use.
Should I download again and re-install?

the bold bits

try the second bit first ( since it might still be held , you have not said you uninstalled it )

if that does nothing, do the first, then the second

fix-broken uninstalled it. As I said before messing around produced this message.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
ocrfeeder : Depends: python-enchant but it is not installable
Depends: python-sane but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-gtkspell3-3.0 but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-goocanvas-2.0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
linux AlaricWood is offline Report This Post
None of those files are on my disk nor are they downloadable by synaptic. My sources list includes free and contrib

only free and contrib?

can you post output of