Document OCR, local search & offline chat
Some offices cannot depend on the internet: law firms with privileged files, clinics, ships, and anyone planning for a long outage. A self-contained stack covers four jobs. Optical character recognition (OCR) turns scanned paper into searchable text: Tesseract is an open-source engine with an LSTM neural network recognizing more than 100 languages, and PaddleOCR converts PDFs and images into structured data and supports over 100 languages.
What we do
- Scan-to-searchable-PDF mailroom workflows
- Local full-text search over firm documents
- Offline summarization and deadline extraction
- Self-hosted chat and file sharing
- UPS and power planning for the kit
- Backups, drills and recovery order
- Privileged-data handling with no cloud dependency
A local search engine makes the text findable: Elasticsearch or OpenSearch index documents and answer queries on your own network, with Elasticsearch adding vector search for semantic retrieval. A local language model served with Ollama, llama.cpp or vLLM can summarize incoming mail, pull out deadlines and draft replies without any document leaving the building.
People still need to talk. Mattermost is a collaboration platform that runs self-hosted, in a private cloud or fully air-gapped, with channels, calls and retention rules, and Matrix is an open network for decentralised communication with a published specification and many clients. We design the whole offline kit: scanners, servers, UPS power, backups, drills and the recovery order, as experience with these tools and not as a reseller.
Leading platforms we work with
- Tesseract
- PaddleOCR
- Elasticsearch
- OpenSearch
- Ollama
- llama.cpp
- Mattermost
- Matrix
- XMPP
- Synapse
- Nextcloud
- ABBYY
- Rocket.Chat
Platforms and practices
- Mailroom scanning and searchable PDFs
- Local full-text and vector search
- Retrieval over private documents
- Local summarization and deadline extraction
- Self-hosted chat and file sharing
- Air-gapped operation
- Local mail and calendars
- UPS power for the continuity kit
- Offline legal and reference libraries
- Continuity drills
References
Sources last checked .
Product names are trademarks of their owners and are listed to describe our experience; they do not imply endorsement or partnership.
Letters in, letters out, no internet needed
Paper mail is scanned and read by local OCR, filed as a searchable PDF, summarised by a local model that flags deadlines, and handed to an attorney. The attorney's notes become a draft letter, a person approves it, and the printer produces the letter and label for the mail carrier.
An office that keeps working with the internet cut
A small on-premises server holds the law library, reads scanned mail, drafts correspondence with a local language model and runs chat. Scanner, printers and staff PCs sit on the same LAN behind a UPS, so a cut WAN cable changes nothing inside the office.
How we use Document OCR, local search & offline chat for clients
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Frequently asked questions
Direct answers to the questions we hear most. Something else on your mind?
Send us a messageWho needs an offline document and chat kit?
Law firms with privileged files, clinics, ships, and anyone planning for a long outage or restricted internet. The stack runs on your own network: scanning, search, a local language model and chat. We design it as a whole, including power, backups and drills.
What is OCR, and which engines do you use?
Optical character recognition turns scanned paper into searchable text. Tesseract is an open-source engine with an LSTM neural network recognizing more than 100 languages. PaddleOCR converts PDFs and images into structured data and supports over 100 languages. Accuracy depends on scan quality, so we test on your documents.
Do documents leave the building?
Not in this design. Search runs on Elasticsearch or OpenSearch on your network, and a local model served with Ollama, llama.cpp or vLLM summarizes mail and extracts deadlines without sending anything out. Operation without internet is possible, and we test it.
Can the local AI be wrong?
Yes. Language models can misread or invent details, so we keep the original document one click away, show sources for retrieved answers, and recommend that a person check anything with legal or clinical consequences. The tool assists staff and does not replace professional judgment.
How do staff communicate when the internet is down?
With self-hosted chat. Mattermost runs self-hosted, in a private cloud or fully air-gapped, with channels, calls and retention rules. Matrix is an open network with a published specification and many clients. We choose by your size and policy.
What else is in the continuity kit?
Scanners, servers, UPS power, backups, local mail and calendars, offline legal or reference libraries, written drills and a recovery order. We run drills with your staff. We design with these tools as experience, and we are not a reseller.