Top 10 Arabic OCR tools in 2022

Trying to make sense of Arabic text? Want to extract Arabic text from your documents?

The Arabic language is written in a script that differs from the Western alphabet, there are specific challenges to overcome when trying to extract text from Arabic documents.

Arabic OCR tools can help you overcome this challenge. Here, we’ve tried to collate the top 10 software (both free and paid options) for you. Take a look at the list and the detailed pros and cons of each Arabic OCR software to know more.

Let’s start with the top 10 Arabic OCR software available in the market in 2022.

---

Nanonets

Nanonets is an easy-to-use OCR software that supports over 120+ languages like Japanese, Hindi, Chinese, etc. Nanonets can be used easily for Arabic OCR.

Any type of Arabic document, including invoices, bills, receipts, ID cards, passports, and more, can have information extracted using Nanonets.

You can expect Arabic OCR accuracy of 95% which is higher than most OCR tools out there. Moreover, you can connect Nanonets with Google Drive, Email, Outlook, CRMs like Salesforce, and 800+ more apps via Zapier. You can create a free account with Nanonets and process your Arabic documents right now.

Capterra rating: 4.9

G2 rating: 4.9

To use Nanonets as an Arabic OCR software, you need to do the following.

Step 1: Create a free account on Nanonets and log in. Click here to create a free account.  

Step 2: Select the model of your choice and upload the document.

Step 3: Check the extracted data in the document.

Invoice took from MSOfficeGeek

Step 4: Once all the data is selected, you can download the extracted data or send the data to the software of your choice.

Pros of using Nanonets

• Easy to use
• Free Trial Version
• Modern user interface
• <15 minutes to create a custom model
• No hidden pricing
• Store your documents online
• Create workflows to process documents automatically
• Works with 120+ languages
• Easy integrations with Zapier and API
• 24×7 customer service

Cons of using Nanonets

• Cannot convert into different languages
• Table extraction can be better.

---

Get started with Nanonets’ pre-trained Arabic OCR models or build your own custom OCR models. You can also schedule a demo to get a free product tour!

---

Sakhr OCR is an offline OCR software. It is highly accurate while detecting Arabic text.

The software is based on ABBYY and Sakhr OCR technology and it has four different shapes libraries to match Arabic characters. The OCR settings for Arabic and Latin text can be changed manually by clicking on the “Settings” icon.

You can’t use it for document automation as there are no automation features.

Pros of using Sakhr OCR

• Easy to use
• Supports many languages
• Automatically converts scanned images into digital text

Cons of using Sakhr OCR

• Slow scanning process
• A strong internet connection required
• Only supports images with solid backgrounds
• Doesn’t have advanced features
• Requires Java Runtime Environment

Tesseract OCR tool can help you convert any image to black and white and remove any noise. You can also optimize the quality of the input image by scaling it, eliminating noise, and cropping it. Image_deskew() and image_rotate() will help you make the text horizontal or vertical and crop out any white space from the margins and text size.

The LSTM OCR engine in Tesseract supports more than 100 languages. The new version of Tesseract also supports more languages, including ideographic languages and right-to-left writing.

Capterra rating: 4.0

G2 rating: 4.4

Pros of using Tesseract OCR

• Building a training set is easy
• Very lightweight library
• Accurate

Cons of using Tesseract OCR

• Lack of batch OCR
• PDF documents are not supported.
• No automation features

---

Get started with Nanonets. Extract data with 95%+ accuracy. Start your free trial today. No credit card is required.

---

The Amazon Textract can be used as an Arabic OCR tool. It is an easy-to-use, web-based application that analyzes scanned documents to extract text and information. It works with any document type, including text, forms, and images.

The tool automatically saves the scanned copy in its Data Lake after analysis.

Capterra rating: 4.3

G2 rating: 4.5

• Easy Setup
• Secure

• Inability to Extract Custom Fields
• No Fraud Checks
• Language Limit
• No Vertical Text Extraction
• Ability to define table header

---

Automate Arabic document processing with Nanonets. Process 50k+ documents on 10x faster. Upload your documents now. No credit card is required.

---

i2OCR is a free online Arabic OCR software.

It is a free tool that allows you to upload Arabic documents and extract information from the documents. Even though it enables exporting files in editable formats like Word, the formatting is severely compromised.

Pros of using i2OCR

• Support for more than 60 languages is a plus.
• Upload an image from a URL or computer
• Edit in Google Docs or directly translate in Google/Bing

Cons of using i2OCR

• Ineffective formatting
• Only allow picture uploads
• Only enable text extraction from images; to use the text, copy it, and then paste it into your favorite word editor.
• 75% to 80% OCR accuracy

OpenArabicOCR is an open-source OCR engine for Arabic text. The software contains a toolset that provides functionality for both segmentation and recognition tasks. This project is based on the OCRopus engine and it uses the OpenCV library as well.

Pros of using OpenArabicOCR

• Capable of recognizing different fonts, languages, and layouts
• Supports multi-language OCR
• The interface is simple and easy to use

Cons of using OpenArabicOCR

• Not fully accurate
• Weak features
• Word documents created from PDFs can be enhanced

---

Automate Arabic document processing with Nanonets. Process 50k+ documents on 10x faster. Upload your documents now. No credit card is required.

---

ABBYY Cloud OCR SDK is the first to offer a free version of its OCR technology, allowing developers to build their apps easily. The SDK supports Arabic and seven other languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.

Capterra rating: 4.7

G2 rating: 4.3

Pros of using ABBYY OCR SDK

• Speed and Ease of Use
• Multilingual Support
• Windows and Mac OS X Support
• Simplifies the Process of Capturing, Storing, Syncing, and Converting Data

Cons of using ABBYY OCR SDK

• Not user friendly
• Invoice reading is complicated
• Machine learning models are a little bit difficult to configure
• Difficult to operate
• The navigation is a little tricky
• Trial version with restrictions

Project Nayuki is an open-source application that supports Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It has both text and image support and a Windows and Linux version. The tool also has a feature to recognize the language of the texts you enter, so you do not have to select it yourself manually.

Pros of using Project Nayuki

• Source code is available on GitHub
• Easy to customize
• Well-documented
• Easy to use

Cons of using Project Nayuki

• Ineffective formatting
• An outdated user interface
• Prices and plans could be more adaptable.

---

Need OCR software for image-to-text extraction or  PDF data extraction? Looking to convert PDF to the table, or PDF to text?

Check out Nanonets in action! No credit card is required.

---

Microsoft Azure OCR is a service that leverages Azure Machine Learning to detect text in images automatically. With support for Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian (with more languages coming soon), this tool can be valuable to anyone who needs to extract text from images with minimal human intervention.

You can use workflow automation if you connect with the Microsoft Power Automate platform.

Capterra rating: 4.6

Pros of using Microsoft Azure OCR

• Easy integration with existing services
• Lower cost of ownership
• Low initial investment
• Improved customer service

Cons of using Microsoft Azure OCR

• Lack of Geographically Distributed Data Centers
• Fewer Services than Competitive Products
• Limited Information Storage Capabilities
• Lack of Experience for Developers
• Requires Management
• Requires Platform Expertise

Ocropus is an open-source OCR tool that supports many languages, including Arabic. It’s available for Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. The download package comes with multiple languages preinstalled, including English and German, along with support for other languages like French, Italian, Spanish, and more.

The software has a PDF converter, which makes it possible to convert any text-based document into another format like DOCX or HTML files.

Pros of using Ocropus

• Simple interface
• Intuitive keyboard shortcuts
• Workflow automation features
• Image-to-text conversion
• No need for time-consuming research
• Helps you to create content for your business needs

Cons of using Ocropus

• No extra features
• Not consistently accurate, but it gets better with time

---

Start using Nanonets for Automation. Try out the various OCR models or request a demo today. Find out how Nanonets’ use cases can apply to your product.

---

Arabic can be a tricky language for OCR software as it is written from left to right and the characters can be difficult to detect. But, we’ve looked at the 10 Arabic OCR software in the market.

All the software has its own pros and cons which are mentioned in the article. We’ll provide you with a list of our recommendations for the best Arabic OCR platform in the market :

• Best Arabic Online OCR tool: Nanonets
• Best Arabic OCR tool for one-time use: i2OCR
• Best Arabic OCR tool for Companies: Nanonets
• Best Arabic Offline OCR tool: Sakhr OCR

The accuracy of all the Arabic OCR tools varies by document quality and the OCR models. In the case of Nanonets, Nanonets OCR models evolve with time

---

Nanonets online OCR & OCR API have many interesting use cases that could optimize your business performance, save costs and boost growth. Find out how Nanonets’ use cases can apply to your product.

---