Detect handwriting in images

Handwriting detection with Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

The Vision API can detect and extract text from images:

  • DOCUMENT_TEXT_DETECTION extracts text from an image (or file); the response is optimized for dense text and documents. The JSON includes page, block, paragraph, word, and break information.

    Screenshot simulating how an OCR system might identify and extract text, highlighting headings, paragraphs, and icons.

    One specific use of DOCUMENT_TEXT_DETECTION is to detect handwriting in an image.

    Lined paper with Google Cloud Platform written in cursive.

Try it for yourself

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Try Cloud Vision API free

Document text detection requests

Set up your Google Cloud project and authentication

Detect document text in a local image

You can use the Vision API to perform feature detection on a local image file.

For REST requests, send the contents of the image file as a base64 encoded string in the body of your request.

For gcloud and client library requests, specify the path to a local image in your request.

REST

Before using any of the request data, make the following replacements:

  • BASE64_ENCODED_IMAGE: The base64 representation (ASCII string) of your binary image data. This string should look similar to the following string:
    • /9j/4QAYRXhpZgAA...9tAVx/zDQDlGxn//2Q==
    Visit the base64 encode topic for more information.
  • PROJECT_ID: Your Google Cloud project ID.

HTTP method and URL:

POST https://vision.googleapis.com/v1/images:annotate

Request JSON body:

{
  "requests": [
    {
      "image": {
        "content": "BASE64_ENCODED_IMAGE"
      },
      "features": [
        {
          "type": "DOCUMENT_TEXT_DETECTION"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

To send your request, choose one of these options:

curl

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

curl -X POST \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
-H "x-goog-user-project: PROJECT_ID" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
-d @request.json \
"https://vision.googleapis.com/v1/images:annotate"

PowerShell

Save the request body in a file named request.json, and execute the following command:

$cred = gcloud auth print-access-token
$headers = @{ "Authorization" = "Bearer $cred"; "x-goog-user-project" = "PROJECT_ID" }

Invoke-WebRequest `
-Method POST `
-Headers $headers `
-ContentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8" `
-InFile request.json `
-Uri "https://vision.googleapis.com/v1/images:annotate" | Select-Object -Expand Content

If the request is successful, the server returns a 200 OK HTTP status code and the response in JSON format.

Go

Before trying this sample, follow the Go setup instructions in the Vision quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Vision Go API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Vision, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.


// detectDocumentText gets the full document text from the Vision API for an image at the given file path.
func detectDocumentText(w io.Writer, file string) error {
	ctx := context.Background()

	client, err := vision.NewImageAnnotatorClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	f, err := os.Open(file)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer f.Close()

	image, err := vision.NewImageFromReader(f)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	annotation, err := client.DetectDocumentText(ctx, image, nil)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	if annotation == nil {
		fmt.Fprintln(w, "No text found.")
	} else {
		fmt.Fprintln(w, "Document Text:")
		fmt.Fprintf(w, "%q\n", annotation.Text)

		fmt.Fprintln(w, "Pages:")
		for _, page := range annotation.Pages {
			fmt.Fprintf(w, "\tConfidence: %f, Width: %d, Height: %d\n", page.Confidence, page.Width, page.Height)
			fmt.Fprintln(w, "\tBlocks:")
			for _, block := range page.Blocks {
				fmt.Fprintf(w, "\t\tConfidence: %f, Block type: %v\n", block.Confidence, block.BlockType)
				fmt.Fprintln(w, "\t\tParagraphs:")
				for _, paragraph := range block.Paragraphs {
					fmt.Fprintf(w, "\t\t\tConfidence: %f", paragraph.Confidence)
					fmt.Fprintln(w, "\t\t\tWords:")
					for _, word := range paragraph.Words {
						symbols := make([]string, len(word.Symbols))
						for i, s := range word.Symbols {
							symbols[i] = s.Text
						}
						wordText := strings.Join(symbols, "")
						fmt.Fprintf(w, "\t\t\t\tConfidence: %f, Symbols: %s\n", word.Confidence, wordText)
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}

	return nil
}

Java

Before trying this sample, follow the Java setup instructions in the Vision API Quickstart Using Client Libraries. For more information, see the Vision API Java reference documentation.

public static void detectDocumentText(String filePath) throws IOException {
  List<AnnotateImageRequest> requests = new ArrayList<>();

  ByteString imgBytes = ByteString.readFrom(new FileInputStream(filePath));

  Image img = Image.newBuilder().setContent(imgBytes).build();
  Feature feat = Feature.newBuilder().setType(Type.DOCUMENT_TEXT_DETECTION).build();
  AnnotateImageRequest request =
      AnnotateImageRequest.newBuilder().addFeatures(feat).setImage(img).build();
  requests.add(request);

  // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
  // once, and can be reused for multiple requests. After completing all of your requests, call
  // the "close" method on the client to safely clean up any remaining background resources.
  try (ImageAnnotatorClient client = ImageAnnotatorClient.create()) {
    BatchAnnotateImagesResponse response = client.batchAnnotateImages(requests);
    List<AnnotateImageResponse> responses = response.getResponsesList();
    client.close();

    for (AnnotateImageResponse res : responses) {
      if (res.hasError()) {
        System.out.format("Error: %s%n", res.getError().getMessage());
        return;
      }

      // For full list of available annotations, see http://g.co/cloud/vision/docs
      TextAnnotation annotation = res.getFullTextAnnotation();
      for (Page page : annotation.getPagesList()) {
        String pageText = "";
        for (Block block : page.getBlocksList()) {
          String blockText = "";
          for (Paragraph para : block.getParagraphsList()) {
            String paraText = "";
            for (Word word : para.getWordsList()) {
              String wordText = "";
              for (Symbol symbol : word.getSymbolsList()) {
                wordText = wordText + symbol.getText();
                System.out.format(
                    "Symbol text: %s (confidence: %f)%n",
                    symbol.getText(), symbol.getConfidence());
              }
              System.out.format(
                  "Word text: %s (confidence: %f)%n%n", wordText, word.getConfidence());
              paraText = String.format("%s %s", paraText, wordText);
            }
            // Output Example using Paragraph:
            System.out.println("%nParagraph: %n" + paraText);
            System.out.format("Paragraph Confidence: %f%n", para.getConfidence());
            blockText = blockText + paraText;
          }
          pageText = pageText + blockText;
        }
      }
      System.out.println("%nComplete annotation:");
      System.out.println(annotation.getText());
    }
  }
}

Node.js

Before trying this sample, follow the Node.js setup instructions in the Vision quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Vision Node.js API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Vision, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment.


// Imports the Google Cloud client library
const vision = require('@google-cloud/vision');

// Creates a client
const client = new vision.ImageAnnotatorClient();

/**
 * TODO(developer): Uncomment the following line before running the sample.
 */
// const fileName = 'Local image file, e.g. /path/to/image.png';

// Read a local image as a text document
const [result] = await client.documentTextDetection(fileName);
const fullTextAnnotation = result.fullTextAnnotation;
console.log(`Full text: ${fullTextAnnotation.text}`);
fullTextAnnotation.pages.forEach(page