Skip to main content

Description

https://github.com/mittagessen/kraken/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg

kraken is a turn-key OCR system optimized for historical and non-Latin script material.

kraken’s main features are:

  • Fully trainable layout analysis, reading order, and character recognition

  • Right-to-Left, BiDi, and Top-to-Bottom script support

  • ALTO, PageXML, abbyyXML, and hOCR output

  • Word bounding boxes and character cuts

  • Multi-script recognition support

  • Public repository of model files

  • Variable recognition network architecture

Installation

Kraken can be run on Linux or Mac OS X (both x64 and ARM). Installation is through the on-board pip utility. To not pollute the global state of your distribution’s package manager it is recommended to use virtual environments. If you do not have a setup or do not wish to handle virtual environments yourself you can use pipx.

$ sudo apt install pipx
$ pipx install kraken

kraken works both on Linux and Mac OS X and with any python interpreter between 3.10 and 3.13. It is possible the installation fails because pipx defaults to an unsupported interpreter version. In that case you need to install a compatible interpreter version such as 3.11 and then specify this version explicitly:

$ sudo apt install python3.13-full
$ pipx install --python python3.13 kraken

Installation using pip

Create and activate a separate virtual environment using whatever tool you like.

$ pip install kraken

or by running pip in the git repository:

$ pip install .

If you want direct PDF and multi-image TIFF/JPEG2000 support it is necessary to install the pdf extras package for PyPi:

$ pip install kraken[pdf]

Finally you’ll have to scrounge up a model to do the actual recognition of characters. To download the default model for printed French text and place it in the kraken directory for the current user:

$ kraken get 10.5281/zenodo.10592716

A list of libre models available in the central repository can be retrieved by running:

$ kraken list

Tests can be run with pytest. This requires additional installations:

$ pip install ".[augment,test]"
$ pytest

Quickstart

Recognizing text on an image using the default parameters including the prerequisite steps of binarization and page segmentation:

$ kraken -i image.tif image.txt binarize segment ocr

To binarize a single image using the nlbin algorithm:

$ kraken -i image.tif bw.png binarize

To segment an image (binarized or not) with the new baseline segmenter:

$ kraken -i image.tif lines.json segment -bl

To segment and OCR an image using the default model(s):

$ kraken -i image.tif image.txt segment -bl ocr -m catmus-print-fondue-large.mlmodel

All subcommands and options are documented. Use the help option to get more information.

Documentation

Have a look at the docs.

Funding

kraken is developed at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université PSL.

Co-financed by the European Union

This project was funded in part by the European Union (ATRIUM, project number 101132163). This project was funded in part by the European Union (ERC, MiDRASH, project number 101071829). This project was partially funded through the RESILIENCE project, funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

Received funding from the Programme d’investissements d’Avenir

Ce travail a bénéficié d’une aide de l’État gérée par l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche au titre du Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir portant la référence ANR-21-ESRE-0005 (Biblissima+).

Release files for kraken 7.1.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for kraken 7.1.1
File Size Uploaded
kraken-7.1.1.tar.gz 5.0 MB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for kraken 7.1.1
File Interpreter ABI Platform
kraken-7.1.1-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 10.1 MB

Release files / kraken-7.1.1.tar.gz

Download URL kraken-7.1.1.tar.gz
Size 5.0 MB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
489079856742ad308a069321a62f89c4eecb008ef4529798a19ff8799ae875d5
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
a99ca623b19650204e656f4c1ff5b71cabc15893e48496fe325a1a6f26a82228
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
Yes
Uploaded via twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

Provenance

Provenance describes where a file came from. On PyPI, provenance is shared via attestations, which provide a verifiable record of the build or publishing details. View details, limitations and caveats.

PyPI Publish Attestation

PyPI verified that this artifact, at this checksum, originated from the publisher listed below.

Signed by GitHub Actions, verified by PyPI on Sep 4, 2026.

Transparency log

Release files / kraken-7.1.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL kraken-7.1.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size 5.1 MB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
82faba07d9fa4746cb822c669e822570f8a8c42a9ac1570ad187326cedbd48e4
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
69e00f1205e32788602a219017bb9ccf53ae705ec0588c510c76bc0d6a1af380
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
Yes
Uploaded via twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

Provenance

Provenance describes where a file came from. On PyPI, provenance is shared via attestations, which provide a verifiable record of the build or publishing details. View details, limitations and caveats.

PyPI Publish Attestation

PyPI verified that this artifact, at this checksum, originated from the publisher listed below.

Signed by GitHub Actions, verified by PyPI on Sep 4, 2026.

Transparency log

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

This release

7.1.1 This release

2 release files

7.1

2 release files

7.0.3

2 release files

7.0.2

2 release files

7.0.1

2 release files

7.0

2 release files

6.0.3

2 release files

6.0.2

2 release files

6.0.0

2 release files

5.3.0

2 release files

5.2.9

2 release files

5.2.8

2 release files

5.2.7

2 release files

5.2.6

2 release files

5.2.5

2 release files

5.2.4

2 release files

5.2.3

2 release files

5.2.2

2 release files

5.2.1

2 release files

5.2.0

2 release files

5.0.0

2 release files

4.3.13

2 release files

4.3.12

2 release files

4.3.11

2 release files

4.3.10

2 release files

4.3.9

2 release files

4.3.7

2 release files

4.3.6

2 release files

4.3.5

2 release files

4.3.4

2 release files

4.3.3

2 release files

4.3.2

2 release files

4.3.1

2 release files

4.3.0

2 release files

4.2.0

2 release files

4.1.2

2 release files

4.1.1

2 release files

4.1.0

2 release files

4.0.0

2 release files

3.0.13

2 release files

3.0.9

2 release files

3.0.8

2 release files

3.0.7

2 release files

3.0.6

2 release files

3.0.4

2 release files

3.0.2

2 release files

3.0.1

2 release files

0.9.6

2 release files

0.6.2.dev1

0.3.1.post11

0.3.1.post10

0.1.0

2 release files

0.1-dev

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page