Extract text from images embedded in pdfs

[sivi3883]

Please provide us with the following information:

This issue is for a: (mark with an x)

- [ ] bug report -> please search issues before submitting
- [ x] feature request
- [ ] documentation issue or request
- [ ] regression (a behavior that used to work and stopped in a new release)

Minimal steps to reproduce

First of all, thanks for the awesome demo code. Works like a charm in the first attempt. Considering I am new to Azure and CLI commands, the instructions are super clear.
I am trying to extract texts from the images embedded in PDFs. I believe I could add a skillset for OCR in the search service and rerun the index.

Looking for your recommendations on how to add it in prepdocs.py. Is there a way to extract the texts from images (as well from the supplied PDFs) through form recognizer?

Any log messages given by the failure

Expected/desired behavior

Use the backend chat application to perform on search text embedded in the images.

OS and Version?

Mac OS Monterey

azd version?

run azd version and copy paste here.

Versions

azd version 1.0.2

Mention any other details that might be useful

---

Thanks! We'll be in touch soon.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 60 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this issue will be closed.

[pamelafox]

This is still a valid feature request and I have heard it a few times. I have not looked into this myself, however. Leaving it open.

[KellyChesco]

Thanks for leaving this open as I just received a request for something like this, and apparently the images are microfiche scans in PDFs to further complicate things.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 60 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this issue will be closed.

[egor-yudkin]

I think that the current DI chunking process already does that. I can see text from embedded images in the index of app we are building. @pamelafox is this somethin you can confirm?

[pamelafox]

You're correct, this is already supported in the manual ingestion path: prepdocs uses Azure AI Document Intelligence (prebuilt-layout with high‑resolution OCR) to extract text from images embedded in PDFs.

To get this behavior, configure AZURE_DOCUMENTINTELLIGENCE_SERVICE in your environment (which is configured by default) and do not set USE_LOCAL_PDF_PARSER (as the local PDF parser does not perform OCR). See docs/data_ingestion.md for details. If you rely only on integrated vectorization, OCR coverage depends on built-in content extraction; for best results use prepdocs with Document Intelligence.

Closing as addressed—if you still see missing text after enabling DI, please add details and we can reopen.