pdf-ocr-feedback

PDF OCR Feedback

Use this skill when transcribing PDF pages through a vision model and a single OCR pass is not reliable enough.

Objective

Produce page-faithful OCR with exact page boundaries, explicit uncertainty, and a practical target of at least 95/100 quality whenever the source allows it.

When to Use

Escalate to this workflow when any of the following are true:

• equations or mathematical notation matter,
• tables have nontrivial structure,
• the page is multi-column,
• the scan is noisy, low-resolution, or artifact-heavy,
• the document mixes languages, scripts, or handwriting,
• or a single OCR pass leaves meaningful uncertainty.

Output Contract

For every page:

1. Preserve reading order.
2. Capture all visible regions that matter: headers, footers, footnotes, captions, margin notes, table content, equation text, figure labels, and code blocks.
3. Emit exact page delimiters:

===== PAGE N =====
<page text>

1. Keep page order unchanged.
2. Preserve equations, units, and table semantics.
3. Never silently drop unknown symbols.
4. If a tie cannot be resolved, mark the span explicitly as [uncertain: "A" | "B"].

Pipeline Overview

For each page:
  1. Pass-1 OCR
  2. Self-evaluate on a 0-100 rubric
  3. If score >= 95 and no red flags -> ACCEPT
  4. Else run Maj@K escalation:
     a. Generate K-1 additional independent passes
     b. Vote at the smallest reliable unit
     c. Re-score the merged result
     d. If still weak, repair only flagged spans
  5. Stop when accepted, capped, or no longer improving

Phase 1: Initial Transcription

For the first pass on every page:

1. Transcribe the full page faithfully.
2. Preserve top-to-bottom, left-to-right reading order. For multi-column pages, process column-by-column.
3. Do not skip difficult regions; capture them or mark them uncertain.
4. Keep formatting structure when it carries meaning, such as headings, lists, table rows, and code blocks.

Phase 2: Self-Evaluation