arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 28

Systematic Literature Review of Machine Learning Models and Applications for Text Recognition

This systematic literature review examines 97 studies on optical character recognition (OCR) from 2015 to 2025, tracing the evolution of AI models, application domains, data types, and linguistic coverage. It identifies key OCR models, evaluates their performance, strengths, and limitations, and highlights unresolved challenges such as limited resources for underrepresented languages, high variability in handwritten text, and constraints in real‑time applications. The review proposes promising approaches—including self‑supervised learning, multimodal AI, AutoML, AI‑assisted postprocessing, TinyML, and joint corpora creation—to enhance OCR accuracy and address these challenges for industrial use.

By Nuzhat Khan, Ab Al-Hadi Ab Rahman, Shahriyar Masud Rizvi, Ibrahim Yousef Alshareef, Muhammad Nadzir Marsono, Muhammad Paend Bakht, Mohd Shahrizal Rusli, Shahidatul Sadiah
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 13

Multilingual OCR-Aware Fine-Tuning and Prompt-Guided Chain-of-Thought Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Models

arXiv:2605. 16409v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Optical character recognition (OCR) and multilingual scene-text understanding remain challenging for multimodal large language models (MLLMs), particularly in real-world images containing small or degraded text, cluttered layouts, occlusion, handwriting, and complex typography.

By Qinwu Xu, Yifan Jiang, Haoyu Ren
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 31

UniLipi: A Unified Multi-Script OCR for Historical Indic Manuscripts

UniLipi is a unified multi‑script OCR model trained on 13 Indic scripts to recognize handwritten manuscripts under challenging conditions such as varied line geometry, length, and interruptions by non‑textual elements. It uses script‑aware synthetic data generation to perform well even with limited real annotated data. The model also predicts script identity and per‑line character counts, aiding manuscript cataloging, and its representations transfer to contemporary Indic handwriting and several non‑Indic scripts.

By Tathagata Ghosh, Sai Madhusudan Gunda, Simran Singh Sandral, Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 31

Synth-JDoc: Synthesizing a Japanese Document Image Dataset for OCR with Diverse Layouts and Embedded Images

The paper introduces Synth-JDoc, a synthetic Japanese document image dataset created by rendering text with HTML and CSS to produce multi‑column layouts that include both vertical and horizontal writing styles. Images generated by text‑to‑image models are embedded to enhance visual realism, and noise and degradation filters are applied to improve robustness. Experiments show that fine‑tuning Large Vision Language Models on Synth‑JDoc yields superior performance on reading vertically written Japanese text compared to prior synthetic datasets.

By Keito Sasagawa, Shuhei Kurita, Daisuke Kawahara