image_to_string doesn't work in Mac

Question

I'm trying to follow this example of pytesser (link) in a Mac Maverick.

>>> from pytesser import *
>>> im = Image.open('phototest.tif')
>>> text = image_to_string(im)

But, in the last line I get this error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "pytesser.py", line 31, in image_to_string
    call_tesseract(scratch_image_name, scratch_text_name_root)
  File "pytesser.py", line 21, in call_tesseract
    proc = subprocess.Popen(args)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 711, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1308, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

But, I don't understand what I should do. The file phototest is in the same folder I'm running the script. How to fix this?

UPDATE:

When I try

brew install tesseract

I get this error:

Warning: It appears you have MacPorts or Fink installed.
Software installed with other package managers causes known problems for
Homebrew. If a formula fails to build, uninstall MacPorts/Fink and try again.
Error: You must `brew link libtiff libpng jpeg' before tesseract can be installed

Answer 1

I actually had the same error as you, which is how I found this post. I also have the solution to my problem, because you gave it to me!

I was seeing:

ryan.davis$ python tesseract.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tesseract.py", line 52, in <module>
    print (image_to_string(big))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 161, in image_to_string
    config=config)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pytesseract/pytesseract.py", line 94, in run_tesseract
    stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.10_2/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 710, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.10_2/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1335, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

Want to know what I had to do to fix this? Exactly what you tried: brew install tesseract I had installed the tesseract python library, but hadn't installed it at the system level. So that solves my problem. How about yours?

I think you might have been distracted by this:

Warning: It appears you have MacPorts or Fink installed. Software installed with other package managers causes known problems for Homebrew. If a formula fails to build, uninstall MacPorts/Fink and try again.

And not noticed your answer was already provided in the brew response:

You must brew link libtiff libpng jpeg before tesseract can be installed.

So do:

brew link libtiff 
brew link libpng 
brew link jpeg

Then:

brew install tesseract

Finally:

:)