Installing pytesser

Question

I'm new to python and would like to install and use the pytesser OCR library. All of the other modules that I've installed, I've used easy_install, which has worked fine. But pytesser is the first that I've had to install by hand using Google Code's .zip file.

Per the instructions in the readme (https://code.google.com/p/pytesser/wiki/README) I extracted the contexts to my C:\Python27\Scripts file. However when I try:

from pytesser import *

within the Python Shell, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
    from pytesser import *
ImportError: No module named pytesser

Any ideas? Windows 7. Python 2.7. My other scripts using modules such as PIL, Scrapy, Numpy have been working fine.

Thanks, Tom

Solution 1

You should not use C:\Python27\Scripts for 3rd party modules, you should use C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages instead.

Solution 2

I'm not sure if this is the ideal solution, but this works for me. Please do correct me if this is incorrect in any way.

1. Unzip the folder & paste it in your Python2x\Lib folder
2. Rename it to pytesser (I'm not too sure if this is a necessary step)
3. Duplicate the tesseract.py file and rename it as __init__.py
4. Open __init__.py
5. Change the line tesseract_exe_name = "tesseract" to tesseract_exe_name = 'C:\Python27\Lib\pytesser\tesseract'

Done.

Solution 3

So I'm using w10 64 bits. And it took me some time to understand how you have to install it to be able to use it.

How to :

https://code.google.com/archive/p/pytesser/downloads

download pytesser_v0.0.1.zip

unzip

move files in the project

rename import Image to "from PIL import Image" in the pytesser.py

=== Enjoy.

Solution 4

Further to Yaitzme answer - another fix you may need (I'm using Python Tools for Visual Studio on Windows 7 64-bit)...

Once I renamed the pytesser.py file to __init__ I had to put a double backslash in the line e.g.

tesseract_exe_name = ‘C:\Anaconda2\Lib\site-packages\pytesser\\tesseract’

as the single backslash '\tesseract' was interpreting the '\t' as a new tab symbol and breaking the path! Put my install instructions here

View more solutions

Comments

[wRAR]

The OP tried to install the module into the system, not to import it from the local directory.

[Samizdis]

According to code.google.com/p/pytesser/wiki/README "PyTesser has no installation functionality in this release." Therefore he needs to have the .py file in his Python path. I address this at the end of my answer. Or am I mistaken?

[wRAR]

Yes, he needs to have the .py file in his Python path and that has nothing to do with the working directory. The last part of your answer assumes you can import modules from PYTHONPATH only after you change working directory which is wrong.

[Samizdis]

I was checking that the problem was indeed PYTHONPATH, being in the same directory works around this problem docs.python.org/2/tutorial/modules.html#the-module-search-pa‌​th

[wRAR]

Yes, now the last part is less wrong, though it is still not necessary for the original question as we know what the OP has done wrong.

[Samizdis]

How is it at all wrong? I agree the conventional place to put 3rd party libraries is Lib\site-packages, but any module in a directory in the Python path is found.

[wRAR]

@Sekai I'd use ~/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (PEP-370)

[stanleyxu2005]

I've downloaded pytesser from google code, but there is no tesseract.py. I found it is actually python-tesseract (code.google.com/p/python-tesseract). Is it the library you've also installed?

[user2314737]

Thanks! That worked perfectly for me too except that I had to name the init file __init__.py

[rahulmishra]

Additionally i had to change the line import Image to from PIL import Image

[Danny Cullen]

I had to change the import for Image to from PIL import Image

[Statham]

For me, the last step is 'C:/Python27/Lib/site-packages/pytesser/tesseract'

[AskMe]

Any help here please? : stackoverflow.com/questions/45604862/…