---
viewer: false
tags: [uv-script, ocr, extraction, vision-language-model, document-processing, hf-jobs]
---
# OCR UV Scripts
> Part of [uv-scripts](https://huggingface.co/uv-scripts) — self-contained UV scripts you run on Hugging Face Jobs in one command.
A model zoo of OCR scripts — one per model — that add a `markdown` column to an image dataset. Pick a model from the table below, point it at your dataset, and run it on a GPU with one command. A few recipes do **structured extraction** instead — image *or* text → JSON given a schema (see [Structured extraction](#structured-extraction-image-or-text--json) below). Two more companions sit alongside: `pp-doclayout.py` detects layout regions (bboxes for text/title/table/figure/…) instead of text, and `ocr-vllm-judge.py` compares model outputs head-to-head.
## Quick Start
Run OCR on any dataset without needing your own GPU:
```bash
# Quick test with 10 samples
hf jobs uv run --flavor l4x1 \
--secrets HF_TOKEN \
https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/raw/main/glm-ocr.py \
your-input-dataset your-output-dataset \
--max-samples 10
```
This will:
- Process the first 10 images from your dataset
- Add OCR results as a new `markdown` column
- Push the results to a new dataset
- View results at: `https://huggingface.co/datasets/[your-output-dataset]`
## Serve a model as a live endpoint
The recipes here run as batch jobs. Some models also have a **`-server.py` sibling recipe** that runs the same dataset→dataset batch job through an in-job `vllm serve` + concurrent driver — measurably faster (continuous batching stays fed) and more robust (one bad image fails one request, not a whole batch); see [SERVING.md](SERVING.md) for the architecture, A/B numbers, and which models officially document server mode. To call a model interactively, from an agent, or with concurrent ad-hoc requests, you can instead run it as a temporary endpoint: [HF Jobs serving](https://huggingface.co/docs/hub/jobs-serving) exposes a port on a GPU Job, giving an OpenAI-compatible endpoint that runs until the job is cancelled or its `--timeout` is reached. See [serving-unlimited-ocr.md](serving-unlimited-ocr.md) for a worked example serving Baidu's [Unlimited-OCR](https://huggingface.co/baidu/Unlimited-OCR) — with vLLM (official image) or SGLang. To OCR a whole corpus of single-page images instead, the batch recipe `unlimited-ocr-vllm.py` is the better fit (it's single-image only). **Multi-page** documents need a server: both vLLM and SGLang read clean multi-page docs, but **SGLang is the more robust** — on hard/degraded scans vLLM multi-page hallucinated in our tests while SGLang held up.
## Models at a glance
**Start here:** for a quick first run, try **`lighton-ocr2.py`** (1B, very fast), **`paddleocr-vl-1.6.py`** (0.9B, 96.33 OmniDocBench) or **`ovis-ocr2.py`** (0.9B, 96.58 OmniDocBench — current SOTA); for the smallest footprint, **`falcon-ocr.py`** (0.3B, strong on tables). Reach for a 7–8B model only when quality demands it. Several of these models sit on the public [olmOCR-Bench](https://huggingface.co/datasets/allenai/olmOCR-bench) — pull the live ranking from your terminal in one command:
```bash
hf datasets leaderboard allenai/olmOCR-bench
```
But which model wins on *your* documents is still document-dependent — so [ocr-bench](https://github.com/davanstrien/ocr-bench) builds a **per-collection leaderboard** for your own data (pairwise VLM-as-judge, optionally human-validated), using these scripts under the hood.
**Language coverage:** [LANGUAGES.md](LANGUAGES.md) lists what each model's card claims (and how much evidence backs it). Machine-readable catalog for agents — script → model, params, backend, image pins, languages: [`models.json`](models.json).
_Sorted by model size:_
| Script | Model | Size | Backend | Notes |
|--------|-------|------|---------|-------|
| [`tesseract-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/tesseract-ocr.py) | [Tesseract 5](https://github.com/tesseract-ocr/tesseract) | n/a (classical) | pytesseract (CPU) | **The legacy baseline** — no GPU at all, runs on `cpu-upgrade`. Plain-text output, `--lang`/`--psm`/`--oem` exposed, 100+ language packs via apt. Apache 2.0 |
| [`pp-ocrv6.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/pp-ocrv6.py) | [PP-OCRv6](https://huggingface.co/collections/PaddlePaddle/pp-ocrv6) | 1.5–34.5M | PaddleOCR (paddle) | **Smallest neural** — classical det+rec pipeline, not a VLM. Three tiers (`--model-tier tiny\|small\|medium`), plain-text output (not markdown). 48 langs. Runs on `t4-small`. Apache 2.0 |
| [`falcon-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/falcon-ocr.py) | [Falcon-OCR](https://huggingface.co/tiiuae/Falcon-OCR) | 0.3B | falcon-perception | Smallest VLM in collection. #1 on multi-column docs and tables (olmOCR), Apache 2.0 |
| [`smoldocling-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/smoldocling-ocr.py) | [SmolDocling](https://huggingface.co/ds4sd/SmolDocling-256M-preview) | 256M | Transformers | DocTags structured output |
| [`surya-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/surya-ocr.py) | [Surya OCR 2](https://huggingface.co/datalab-to/surya-ocr-2) | 0.65B | vLLM | **Structured** OCR + `--task layout\|table`: per-block HTML with bboxes & reading order in an extra `surya_blocks` column. 91 langs, top-under-3B on olmOCR-Bench. Modified OpenRAIL-M license. Needs the **pinned** `vllm/vllm-openai:v0.20.1` image |
| [`glm-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/glm-ocr.py) | [GLM-OCR](https://huggingface.co/zai-org/GLM-OCR) | 0.9B | vLLM | 94.62% OmniDocBench V1.5 |
| [`paddleocr-vl.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/paddleocr-vl.py) | [PaddleOCR-VL](https://huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL) | 0.9B | vLLM | 4 task modes (ocr/table/formula/chart) |
| [`paddleocr-vl-1.5.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/paddleocr-vl-1.5.py) | [PaddleOCR-VL-1.5](https://huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL-1.5) | 0.9B | Transformers | 94.5% OmniDocBench, 6 task modes |
| [`paddleocr-vl-1.6.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/paddleocr-vl-1.6.py) | [PaddleOCR-VL-1.6](https://huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL-1.6) | 0.9B | vLLM | **96.33% OmniDocBench v1.6**, drop-in upgrade of 1.5 |
| [`ovis-ocr2.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/ovis-ocr2.py) | [OvisOCR2](https://huggingface.co/ATH-MaaS/OvisOCR2) | 0.9B | vLLM | **96.58 OmniDocBench v1.6** (SOTA; first end-to-end model to top it). Qwen3.5 base; markdown + LaTeX + HTML tables. Apache 2.0 |
| [`ovis-ocr2-server.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/ovis-ocr2-server.py) | [OvisOCR2](https://huggingface.co/ATH-MaaS/OvisOCR2) | 0.9B | vLLM server | **Server-mode sibling** of `ovis-ocr2.py`: in-job `vllm serve` + concurrent driver — ~1.7× its throughput, per-image failure isolation. See [SERVING.md](SERVING.md) |
| [`lighton-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lighton-ocr.py) | [LightOnOCR-1B](https://huggingface.co/lightonai/LightOnOCR-1B-1025) | 1B | vLLM | Fast, 3 vocab sizes |
| [`lighton-ocr2.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lighton-ocr2.py) | [LightOnOCR-2-1B](https://huggingface.co/lightonai/LightOnOCR-2-1B) | 1B | vLLM | 7× faster than v1, RLVR trained |
| [`lighton-ocr2-server.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lighton-ocr2-server.py) | [LightOnOCR-2-1B](https://huggingface.co/lightonai/LightOnOCR-2-1B) | 1B | vLLM server | **Server-mode sibling** of `lighton-ocr2.py` (the card's own documented path) — ~1.8× its throughput. See [SERVING.md](SERVING.md) |
| [`hunyuan-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/hunyuan-ocr.py) | [HunyuanOCR 1.0](https://huggingface.co/tencent/HunyuanOCR/tree/f6af82ee007fe6091b29fb3bb287b491ead41c82) | 1B | vLLM | Lightweight VLM. Pinned to the last 1.0 revision (repo root became 1.5 in-place on 2026-07-06). [Hunyuan Community License](https://huggingface.co/tencent/HunyuanOCR/blob/main/LICENSE) (excludes EU/UK/KR) |
| [`hunyuan-ocr-1.5.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/hunyuan-ocr-1.5.py) | [HunyuanOCR-1.5](https://huggingface.co/tencent/HunyuanOCR) | 1B | vLLM | 128K context, 4K images, 12 task types, ancient scripts. ~4-5× faster/page than dots.ocr & DeepSeek-OCR-2 (tech report). [Hunyuan Community License](https://huggingface.co/tencent/HunyuanOCR/blob/main/LICENSE) (excludes EU/UK/KR) |
| [`dots-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/dots-ocr.py) | [dots.ocr](https://huggingface.co/rednote-hilab/dots.ocr) | 1.7B | vLLM | 100 languages (in-house bench), explicit low-resource claim |
| [`firered-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/firered-ocr.py) | [FireRed-OCR](https://huggingface.co/FireRedTeam/FireRed-OCR) | 2.1B | vLLM | Qwen3-VL fine-tune, Apache 2.0 |
| [`abot-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/abot-ocr.py) | [ABot-OCR](https://huggingface.co/acvlab/ABot-OCR) | 2B | vLLM | Qwen3-VL based, doc→Markdown (text/LaTeX/HTML tables). Needs `vllm/vllm-openai` image. [paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27978) |
| [`nanonets-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/nanonets-ocr.py) | [Nanonets-OCR-s](https://huggingface.co/nanonets/Nanonets-OCR-s) | 2B | vLLM | LaTeX, tables, forms |
| [`dots-mocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/dots-mocr.py) | [dots.mocr](https://huggingface.co/rednote-hilab/dots.mocr) | 3B | vLLM | 8 prompt modes incl. SVG generation, layout + bbox, 100+ languages |
| [`nanonets-ocr2.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/nanonets-ocr2.py) | [Nanonets-OCR2-3B](https://huggingface.co/nanonets/Nanonets-OCR2-3B) | 3B | vLLM | Next-gen, Qwen2.5-VL base. **Pin `--image vllm/vllm-openai:v0.10.2`** (vLLM ≥0.11 breaks Qwen2.5-VL → all `!`) |
| [`deepseek-ocr-vllm.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/deepseek-ocr-vllm.py) | [DeepSeek-OCR](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR) | 4B | vLLM | 5 resolution + 5 prompt modes |
| [`deepseek-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/deepseek-ocr.py) | [DeepSeek-OCR](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR) | 4B | Transformers | Same model, Transformers backend |
| [`deepseek-ocr2-vllm.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/deepseek-ocr2-vllm.py) | [DeepSeek-OCR-2](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-OCR-2) | 3B | vLLM | Newer; needs nightly vLLM **+ the `vllm/vllm-openai` image** ([why](#if-a-vllm-script-crashes-at-startup-the-nvcc--nvrtc-error)) |
| [`unlimited-ocr-vllm.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/unlimited-ocr-vllm.py) | [Unlimited-OCR](https://huggingface.co/baidu/Unlimited-OCR) | 3.3B | vLLM | DeepSeek-OCR-based; layout-grounded markdown (`--strip-grounding` for clean text). Single-image batch — needs Baidu's **dedicated `vllm/vllm-openai:unlimited-ocr` image** (`-cu129` on Hopper). Multi-page "long-horizon" parsing → serve it ([doc](serving-unlimited-ocr.md)); both engines do clean docs, **SGLang more robust** on hard scans. MIT |
| [`nuextract3.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/nuextract3.py) | [NuExtract3](https://huggingface.co/numind/NuExtract3) | 4B | vLLM | Markdown OCR **+ schema-guided JSON extraction** (template/Pydantic). Needs `vllm/vllm-openai` image |
| [`qianfan-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/qianfan-ocr.py) | [Qianfan-OCR](https://huggingface.co/baidu/Qianfan-OCR) | 4.7B | vLLM | #1 OmniDocBench v1.5 (93.12), Layout-as-Thought, 192 languages |
| [`olmocr2-vllm.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/olmocr2-vllm.py) | [olmOCR-2-7B](https://huggingface.co/allenai/olmOCR-2-7B-1025-FP8) | 7B | vLLM | 82.4% olmOCR-Bench |
| [`rolm-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/rolm-ocr.py) | [RolmOCR](https://huggingface.co/reducto/RolmOCR) | 7B | vLLM | Qwen2.5-VL based, general-purpose |
| [`numarkdown-ocr.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/numarkdown-ocr.py) | [NuMarkdown-8B](https://huggingface.co/numind/NuMarkdown-8B-Thinking) | 8B | vLLM | Reasoning-based OCR |
**Variants & tools** (same models, different I/O): `glm-ocr-v2.py` adds checkpoint/resume for very large jobs · `glm-ocr-bucket.py` and `falcon-ocr-bucket.py` read images/PDFs from a mounted bucket and write one `.md` per page · `surya-ocr-bucket.py` is the structured bucket recipe — OCR a bucket of files (no dataset round-trip) via either a FUSE mount **or** `huggingface_hub` batch-copy (`--io-mode mount|copy`), writing per-page `.md` + `.json` (`surya_blocks`) back to a bucket (resumable) and/or a pushed dataset · `ocr-vllm-judge.py` runs pairwise OCR-quality comparisons.
`surya-ocr.py` is the structured outlier: besides the flattened text column it writes a `surya_blocks` JSON column (per-block HTML + bounding boxes + reading order), and `--task` switches between OCR, `layout`, and `table`. It runs as **offline vLLM batch** (no server) and must use the **pinned** `vllm/vllm-openai:v0.20.1` image — its `qwen3_5` architecture is recent and version-sensitive, and that image puts vLLM at `/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages` (use `--python /usr/local/bin/python3`; the exact command is in the script's docstring). Weights are **modified OpenRAIL-M**.
## Structured extraction (image or text → JSON)
Most scripts here output markdown. These take a **schema** and return **structured data** instead — give them the fields you want, they fill them in:
| Script | Model | Size | Input | Output |
|--------|-------|------|-------|--------|
| [`lfm2-vl-extract.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lfm2-vl-extract.py) | [LFM2.5-VL-1.6B-Extract](https://huggingface.co/LiquidAI/LFM2.5-VL-1.6B-Extract) | 1.6B | image | JSON |
| [`nuextract3.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/nuextract3.py) | [NuExtract3](https://huggingface.co/numind/NuExtract3) | 4B | image | markdown **or** JSON |
| [`lfm2-extract.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lfm2-extract.py) | [LFM2-1.2B-Extract](https://huggingface.co/LiquidAI/LFM2-1.2B-Extract) | 1.2B | **text** | JSON / XML / YAML |
| [`lift-extract.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/lift-extract.py) | [lift](https://huggingface.co/datalab-to/lift) | 9B | image **or** PDF | JSON |
Pass `--schema` (inline JSON, a URL, or a file path). The LFM models are small and fast; run them on the `vllm/vllm-openai` image so the CUDA toolkit is present (each script's docstring has the exact command). Because `lfm2-extract.py` works on a **text** column, you can **chain it after OCR**: a recipe above turns a page into `markdown`, then `lfm2-extract.py` turns that markdown into fields.
`lift-extract.py` is the one outlier: a 9B model that also reads **multi-page PDFs** (`--pdf-column`, `--page-range`) and runs on either Transformers (`--method hf`) or vLLM (`--method vllm`). Its weights are **modified OpenRAIL-M** (free for research, personal use, and startups under $5M; no competitive use against Datalab's API) — the only non-permissive license here, so check the terms.
```bash
# image → JSON directly
hf jobs uv run --flavor l4x1 --secrets HF_TOKEN \
--image vllm/vllm-openai --python /usr/bin/python3 \
-e PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages \
https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/raw/main/lfm2-vl-extract.py \
my-images my-fields --schema '{"title": "the document title", "date": "any date shown"}'
```
## Layout detection (not OCR)
`pp-doclayout.py` runs PaddleOCR's [PP-DocLayout-L](https://huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PP-DocLayout-L) (or M / S / plus-L) and emits per-image **bounding boxes + region classes** (text, title, table, figure, formula, list, header, footer, ...) — it does NOT extract text. Useful for filtering pages, cropping regions for downstream OCR, dataset analysis, and training-data prep.
| Script | Model | Size | Backend | Notes |
|--------|-------|------|---------|-------|
| [`pp-doclayout.py`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/blob/main/pp-doclayout.py) | [PP-DocLayout-L](https://huggingface.co/PaddlePaddle/PP-DocLayout-L) | 123M | paddleocr | Layout bboxes (no text). Bucket support: incremental parquet shards, resumable. |
```bash
hf jobs uv run --flavor l4x1 -s HF_TOKEN \
https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/raw/main/pp-doclayout.py \
your-dataset your-layout-output --max-samples 10
```
Source/sink can be either an HF dataset repo OR an `hf://buckets/...` URL (auto-detected). Bucket output writes incremental zstd parquet shards via the buckets API — resumable across runs (snapshot-backed source listing) and no git/commit overhead. See the script's `--help` for all flags.
## If a vLLM script crashes at startup (the `nvcc` / `nvrtc` error)
The vLLM recipes run on the **default** Jobs image and carry a guard (`VLLM_USE_FLASHINFER_SAMPLER=0`) so they work there with the plain command. But some — especially nightly-vLLM ones — JIT-compile a CUDA kernel at engine init and crash on the default image with one of:
```
RuntimeError: Could not find nvcc and default cuda_home='/usr/local/cuda' doesn't exist
nvrtc: error: failed to open libnvrtc-builtins.so...
```
Run those on the **`vllm/vllm-openai` image**, which ships the full CUDA toolkit. Add these flags to any recipe — they point `import vllm` at the image's CUDA-matched build:
```bash
hf jobs uv run --flavor l4x1 --secrets HF_TOKEN \
--image vllm/vllm-openai --python /usr/bin/python3 \
-e PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3.12/dist-packages \
https://huggingface.co/datasets/uv-scripts/ocr/raw/main/