Updates the documentation to be correct about the respecting now

docs/configuration.md

@@ -948,10 +948,11 @@ for display in the web interface.
 
     !!! note
 
-        The **remote OCR parser** (Azure AI) always produces a searchable
+        The **remote OCR parser** (Azure AI) also honors this setting: when
-        PDF and stores it as the archive copy, regardless of this setting.
+        no archive is requested (`never`, or `auto` with a born-digital PDF),
-        `ARCHIVE_FILE_GENERATION=never` has no effect when the remote
+        the remote engine is skipped entirely and locally-extracted text is
-        parser handles a document.
+        used instead, avoiding an unnecessary API call and a duplicate text
+        layer.
 
 #### [`PAPERLESS_OCR_CLEAN=<mode>`](#PAPERLESS_OCR_CLEAN) {#PAPERLESS_OCR_CLEAN}
 

docs/migration-v3.md

@@ -187,10 +187,11 @@ PAPERLESS_ARCHIVE_FILE_GENERATION=auto
 
 ### Remote OCR parser
 
-If you use the **remote OCR parser** (Azure AI), note that it always produces a
+If you use the **remote OCR parser** (Azure AI), `ARCHIVE_FILE_GENERATION` is
-searchable PDF and stores it as the archive copy. `ARCHIVE_FILE_GENERATION=never`
+honored the same way as for the local engine: when no archive is requested
-has no effect for documents handled by the remote parser - the archive is produced
+(`never`, or `auto` with a born-digital PDF), the remote engine is skipped
-unconditionally by the remote engine.
+entirely and locally-extracted text is used instead, avoiding an unnecessary
+API call and a duplicate text layer.
 
 ## Search Index (Whoosh -> Tantivy)
 

src/paperless/parsers/remote.py

@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@ Built-in remote-OCR document parser.
 
 Handles documents by sending them to a configured remote OCR engine
 (currently Azure AI Vision / Document Intelligence) and retrieving both
-the extracted text and a searchable PDF with an embedded text layer.
+the extracted text and a searchable PDF with an embedded text layer. For
+born-digital PDFs that need no archive copy, the remote call is skipped
+entirely in favor of locally-extracted text (see ``RemoteDocumentParser.parse``).
 
 When no engine is configured, ``score()`` returns ``None`` so the parser
 is effectively invisible to the registry — the tesseract parser handles
@@ -21,6 +23,8 @@ from typing import Self
 
 from django.conf import settings
 
+from paperless.parsers.utils import extract_pdf_text
+from paperless.parsers.utils import post_process_text
 from paperless.version import __full_version_str__
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
@@ -69,8 +73,11 @@ class RemoteDocumentParser:
     """Parse documents via a remote OCR API (currently Azure AI Vision).
 
     This parser sends documents to a remote engine that returns both
-    extracted text and a searchable PDF with an embedded text layer.
+    extracted text and a searchable PDF with an embedded text layer,
-    It does not depend on Tesseract or ocrmypdf.
+    except when ``parse()`` is called with ``produce_archive=False`` for
+    a PDF, in which case the remote call is skipped and only locally
+    extracted text is returned (no archive). It does not depend on
+    Tesseract or ocrmypdf.
 
     Class attributes
     ----------------
@@ -159,8 +166,11 @@ class RemoteDocumentParser:
         Returns
         -------
         bool
-            Always True — the remote engine always returns a PDF with an
+            Always True — the remote engine is capable of returning a PDF
-            embedded text layer that serves as the archive copy.
+            with an embedded text layer to serve as the archive copy.
+            Whether it actually does so for a given document depends on
+            ``produce_archive`` passed to :meth:`parse` (see there for when
+            the remote engine call, and thus archive generation, is skipped).
         """
         return True
 
@@ -217,6 +227,12 @@ class RemoteDocumentParser:
     ) -> None:
         """Send the document to the remote engine and store results.
 
+        When *produce_archive* is False for a PDF, the caller (via
+        ``documents.consumer.should_produce_archive``) has already determined
+        that the document is born-digital and needs no archive — skip the
+        remote engine entirely rather than re-OCRing it and creating a
+        duplicate text layer.
+
         Parameters
         ----------
         document_path:
@@ -224,8 +240,8 @@ class RemoteDocumentParser:
         mime_type:
             Detected MIME type of the document.
         produce_archive:
-            Ignored — the remote engine always returns a searchable PDF,
+            Whether an archive copy is wanted. For PDFs, False skips the
-            which is stored as the archive copy regardless of this flag.
+            remote engine and uses locally-extracted text instead.
         """
         config = RemoteEngineConfig(
             engine=settings.REMOTE_OCR_ENGINE,
@@ -240,6 +256,16 @@ class RemoteDocumentParser:
             self._text = ""
             return
 
+        if not produce_archive and mime_type == "application/pdf":
+            logger.debug(
+                "Remote OCR: skipped — no archive requested, "
+                "using locally-extracted text",
+            )
+            self._text = (
+                post_process_text(extract_pdf_text(document_path, log=logger)) or ""
+            )
+            return
+
         if config.engine == "azureai":
             self._text = self._azure_ai_vision_parse(document_path, config)
 

src/paperless/parsers/tesseract.py

@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 import importlib.resources
 import logging
 import os
-import re
 import shutil
 import tempfile
 from pathlib import Path
@@ -25,9 +24,9 @@ from paperless.config import OcrConfig
 from paperless.models import CleanChoices
 from paperless.models import ModeChoices
 from paperless.models import OutputTypeChoices
-from paperless.parsers.utils import PDF_TEXT_MIN_LENGTH
 from paperless.parsers.utils import extract_pdf_text
-from paperless.parsers.utils import is_tagged_pdf
+from paperless.parsers.utils import pdf_has_digital_text
+from paperless.parsers.utils import post_process_text
 from paperless.parsers.utils import read_file_handle_unicode_errors
 from paperless.version import __full_version_str__
 
@@ -510,10 +509,10 @@ class RasterisedDocumentParser:
 
         if mime_type == "application/pdf":
             text_original = self.extract_text(None, document_path)
-            has_text = text_original is not None and len(text_original) > 0
+            original_has_text = pdf_has_digital_text(
-            original_has_text = has_text and (
+                document_path,
-                is_tagged_pdf(document_path, log=self.log)
+                text_original,
-                or len(text_original) > PDF_TEXT_MIN_LENGTH
+                log=self.log,
             )
         else:
             text_original = None
@@ -658,17 +657,3 @@ class RasterisedDocumentParser:
                     f"No text was found in {document_path}, the content will be empty.",
                 )
                 self.text = ""
-
-
-def post_process_text(text: str | None) -> str | None:
-    if not text:
-        return None
-
-    collapsed_spaces = re.sub(r"([^\S\r\n]+)", " ", text)
-    no_leading_whitespace = re.sub(r"([\n\r]+)([^\S\n\r]+)", "\\1", collapsed_spaces)
-    no_trailing_whitespace = re.sub(r"([^\S\n\r]+)$", "", no_leading_whitespace)
-
-    # TODO: this needs a rework
-    # replace \0 prevents issues with saving to postgres.
-    # text may contain \0 when this character is present in PDF files.
-    return no_trailing_whitespace.strip().replace("\0", " ")

src/paperless/parsers/utils.py

@@ -65,6 +65,63 @@ def is_tagged_pdf(
         return False
 
 
+def pdf_has_digital_text(
+    path: Path,
+    text: str | None,
+    log: logging.Logger | None = None,
+) -> bool:
+    """Return True if a PDF already has a usable, born-digital text layer.
+
+    Combines the tagged-PDF check with an extracted-text length check.
+    Shared by the tesseract and remote OCR parsers to decide whether
+    OCR_MODE=auto/off should skip (re-)OCRing a document.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    path:
+        Absolute path to the PDF file.
+    text:
+        Text already extracted from the PDF (e.g. via ``extract_pdf_text``),
+        or ``None``.
+    log:
+        Logger for warnings.  Falls back to the module-level logger when omitted.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    bool
+        ``True`` when the document already contains a text layer.
+    """
+    return is_tagged_pdf(path, log=log) or (
+        text is not None and len(text) > PDF_TEXT_MIN_LENGTH
+    )
+
+
+def post_process_text(text: str | None) -> str | None:
+    """Normalise whitespace in extracted OCR/PDF text and strip NUL bytes.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    text:
+        Raw extracted text, or ``None``.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    str | None
+        Cleaned text, or ``None`` when *text* is falsy.
+    """
+    if not text:
+        return None
+
+    collapsed_spaces = re.sub(r"([^\S\r\n]+)", " ", text)
+    no_leading_whitespace = re.sub(r"([\n\r]+)([^\S\n\r]+)", "\\1", collapsed_spaces)
+    no_trailing_whitespace = re.sub(r"([^\S\n\r]+)$", "", no_leading_whitespace)
+
+    # TODO: this needs a rework
+    # replace \0 prevents issues with saving to postgres.
+    # text may contain \0 when this character is present in PDF files.
+    return no_trailing_whitespace.strip().replace("\0", " ")
+
+
 def extract_pdf_text(
     path: Path,
     log: logging.Logger | None = None,

src/paperless/tests/parsers/test_remote_parser.py

@@ -336,6 +336,117 @@ class TestRemoteParserParse:
         assert remote_parser.get_date() is None
 
 
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# parse() — produce_archive=False skips the remote engine (PDFs only)
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+class TestRemoteParserSkipsWhenNoArchiveWanted:
+    """When the caller has already decided no archive is needed for a PDF
+    (documents.consumer.should_produce_archive), the remote engine call is
+    skipped entirely in favor of locally-extracted text.
+    """
+
+    def test_pdf_skips_azure_when_no_archive_requested(
+        self,
+        remote_parser: RemoteDocumentParser,
+        simple_digital_pdf_file: Path,
+        azure_client: Mock,
+    ) -> None:
+        """
+        GIVEN: produce_archive=False for a PDF
+        WHEN:  parse() is called
+        THEN:  Azure is never invoked, no archive is produced, and text
+               comes from local pdftotext extraction
+        """
+        remote_parser.parse(
+            simple_digital_pdf_file,
+            "application/pdf",
+            produce_archive=False,
+        )
+
+        azure_client.begin_analyze_document.assert_not_called()
+        assert remote_parser.get_archive_path() is None
+        assert remote_parser.get_text() != ""
+
+    def test_pdf_no_archive_requested_text_matches_local_extraction(
+        self,
+        remote_parser: RemoteDocumentParser,
+        simple_digital_pdf_file: Path,
+        azure_client: Mock,
+        mocker: MockerFixture,
+    ) -> None:
+        """
+        GIVEN: produce_archive=False for a PDF
+        WHEN:  parse() is called
+        THEN:  the returned text is exactly the locally-extracted text,
+               not anything from the (unused) Azure mock
+        """
+        mocker.patch(
+            "paperless.parsers.remote.extract_pdf_text",
+            return_value="Local digital text.",
+        )
+
+        remote_parser.parse(
+            simple_digital_pdf_file,
+            "application/pdf",
+            produce_archive=False,
+        )
+
+        assert remote_parser.get_text() == "Local digital text."
+
+    def test_pdf_no_archive_requested_closes_no_client(
+        self,
+        remote_parser: RemoteDocumentParser,
+        simple_digital_pdf_file: Path,
+        azure_client: Mock,
+    ) -> None:
+        remote_parser.parse(
+            simple_digital_pdf_file,
+            "application/pdf",
+            produce_archive=False,
+        )
+
+        azure_client.close.assert_not_called()
+
+    def test_non_pdf_still_calls_azure_when_no_archive_requested(
+        self,
+        remote_parser: RemoteDocumentParser,
+        simple_digital_pdf_file: Path,
+        azure_client: Mock,
+    ) -> None:
+        """
+        Images have no local-text fallback, so produce_archive=False does
+        not skip the remote engine for non-PDF MIME types.
+        """
+        remote_parser.parse(
+            simple_digital_pdf_file,
+            "image/png",
+            produce_archive=False,
+        )
+
+        azure_client.begin_analyze_document.assert_called_once()
+        assert remote_parser.get_text() == _DEFAULT_TEXT
+
+    @pytest.mark.usefixtures("no_engine_settings")
+    def test_unconfigured_engine_takes_precedence_over_skip(
+        self,
+        remote_parser: RemoteDocumentParser,
+        simple_digital_pdf_file: Path,
+    ) -> None:
+        """An unconfigured engine still short-circuits before the
+        produce_archive check, returning empty text as before.
+        """
+        remote_parser.parse(
+            simple_digital_pdf_file,
+            "application/pdf",
+            produce_archive=False,
+        )
+
+        assert remote_parser.get_text() == ""
+        assert remote_parser.get_archive_path() is None
+
+
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # parse() — Azure failure path
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

src/paperless/tests/parsers/test_tesseract_parser.py

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ from documents.parsers import run_convert
 from paperless.models import ModeChoices
 from paperless.parsers import ParserProtocol
 from paperless.parsers.tesseract import RasterisedDocumentParser
-from paperless.parsers.tesseract import post_process_text
+from paperless.parsers.utils import post_process_text
 
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from pathlib import Path