---
title: "Android OCR SDK | Extract text from PDFs on Android with OCR"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/ocr/getting-started/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/ocr/getting-started.md"
last_updated: "2026-06-08T19:21:59.104Z"
description: "Use Nutrient's mobile OCR SDK to extract text from PDFs on Android. Unlock previously inaccessible content, enabling text selection, annotation, search, and accessibility."
---

# Integrating our OCR SDK into Android

This guide explains the process of integrating the OCR library of Nutrient for Android into your project. The OCR library is designed to work best with [Android Studio](https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html) and the [Gradle](https://gradle.org/) build system. We recommend the latest stable Android Studio as the IDE and the latest stable Android Gradle plugin for development.

## Setting up OCR

Below is a list of steps required to set up OCR.

### Step 1 — Adding Nutrient and OCR to your project

You must first [log in to the Nutrient Portal](https://my.nutrient.io/users/sign_in) before accessing the Maven repository.

1. In your top-level `build.gradle` file, add the Nutrient Maven repository:

   ```groovy

   allprojects {
       repositories {
           maven {
               url 'https://my.nutrient.io/maven/'
           }
       }
   }
   ```

2. In your app-level `build.gradle` file, add the Nutrient and OCR dependencies:

   ```groovy

   dependencies {
       implementation "io.nutrient:nutrient:11.5.1"
       implementation "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr:11.5.1"
   }
   ```

### Step 2 — Adding OCR language packs

For each [supported language](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/ocr/language-support.md) you want to perform OCR for, your app needs to contain a language pack. Each language pack has to be added as a dependency, either to your primary application module, or transitively — for example, by adding it to a dynamic feature APK module, which can be downloaded to a device on demand using [Play Feature Delivery](https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/feature-delivery).

To add one or more OCR language packs to an Android module, specify them inside the dependencies block of that module:

```groovy

dependencies {
    // The language pack version has to match the Nutrient and OCR library versions.
    final nutrient_version = '11.5.1'

    // Pick one or more language packs from this list.
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-croatian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-czech:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-danish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-dutch:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-english:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-finnish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-french:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-german:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-indonesian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-italian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-malay:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-norwegian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-polish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-portuguese:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-serbian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-slovak:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-slovenian:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-spanish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-swedish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-turkish:$nutrient_version"
    api "io.nutrient:nutrient-ocr-welsh:$nutrient_version"
}

```

When adding language packs transitively to submodules of your primary app module (for example, with [Play Feature Delivery](https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/feature-delivery)), make sure to specify the language packs using the `api` configuration instead of `implementation`.

## Catalog example

You can find a runnable [`OcrExample`](https://github.com/PSPDFKit/pspdfkit-android-catalog/blob/9eac1be5767cdeb5a58d879d0749c2338d4f77fb/app/src/main/java/com/pspdfkit/catalog/examples/kotlin/OcrExample.kt) inside our Catalog app, and it showcases the use of OCR. To try out the OCR example in action, check out the [Catalog Getting Started](https://github.com/PSPDFKit/pspdfkit-android-catalog#getting-started) section.

## Next steps

Check out our OCR [usage](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/android/ocr/usage.md) guide to see how to use OCR inside your Android application with Java or Kotlin.
---

## Related pages

- [Discover supported languages for Android OCR](/guides/android/ocr/language-support.md)
- [Unlocking OCR capabilities for Android PDFs](/guides/android/ocr/overview.md)
- [How to OCR a PDF on Android](/guides/android/ocr/usage.md)