Visual Page Editor

A modern visual editor for Page XML files, based on nw-page-editor.

Repository: https://github.com/buzzcauldron/visual-page-editor

Description

Visual Page Editor is an application for viewing and editing ground truth or predicted information for document processing and text recognition. Editing is done interactively on top of images of scanned documents.

Features

• Visual editing of Page XML with live feedback
• Supports omni:us Pages Format, PRImA Page XML, ALTO v2/v3, TET, Poppler
• Desktop app (NW.js) and web-app variant
• Keyboard shortcuts (see KEYBOARD-SHORTCUTS.md)

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Quick start (desktop)

git clone https://github.com/buzzcauldron/visual-page-editor.git
cd visual-page-editor
./scripts/install-desktop.sh
./bin/visual-page-editor examples/lorem.xml

That installs dependencies (and bootstraps Node into .tools/ if you do not have Node 18+), pulls the NW.js SDK via npm, then opens the sample Page XML. You do not need a global nw on PATH.

Windows (PowerShell): .\scripts\install-desktop.ps1 then .\bin\visual-page-editor.ps1 examples\lorem.xml

Optional: ./scripts/install-desktop.sh --start runs install and then launches the app in one step. On Windows: .\scripts\install-desktop.ps1 -Start.

More detail — Docker desktop image, tests, packaging, Apple Silicon notes: README-DOCKER.md, TESTING.md, BUILD.md, INSTALL-MAC.md.

Open multiple files: ./bin/visual-page-editor examples/lorem.xml examples/lorem2.xml

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Container (Docker)

Recommended: from the repo root, use ./docker-run.sh — it builds a version-tagged image (visual-page-editor:<VERSION> from VERSION), configures XQuartz on macOS or X11 on Linux, and mounts your project so saves stay on the host. First run builds the image; after upgrades use ./docker-run.sh --build ….

./docker-run.sh examples/lorem.xml

No Node or NW.js is required on the host—only Docker (and XQuartz on macOS for a visible window). Full prerequisites, Compose, and manual docker commands: README-DOCKER.md.

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Usage

Shortcut	Action
Mod + O / Mod + S	Open / Save
Page Up/Down or arrows	Navigate pages (arrows pan when zoomed)
Mod + 0 / Mod + 2	Fit page / Zoom to selection
Tab / Shift + Tab	Next / previous element
Full list	KEYBOARD-SHORTCUTS.md

Supported formats

• omni:us Pages Format, PRImA Page XML (2013-07-15, 2010-03-19), ALTO v2/v3, TET, Poppler

Web app

The web-app directory provides a web-based variant for remote use. See that directory for setup.

Development

git clone https://github.com/buzzcauldron/visual-page-editor.git
cd visual-page-editor
./scripts/install-desktop.sh   # or: npm install
./bin/visual-page-editor
# or: npm start

Verification scripts (verify:nw, Docker bootstrap test, clean macOS copy): TESTING.md. The launcher uses NWJS_VERSION (default 0.109.1, aligned with nw@0.109.1-sdk in package.json).

Testing:

• npm run test:unit — vitest unit tests (Point2f, PanZoom, etc.)
• npm run test:launcher — bats launcher tests (20 tests across platforms)
• npm run review / ./scripts/code-review.sh — code review; see CODE_REVIEW.md

Build: npm run build bundles src/entry.js → js/bundle.js via esbuild (runs automatically on npm install via the prepare script). Use npm run build:watch during development.

License and links

• License: MIT — LICENSE.md
• This project: github.com/buzzcauldron/visual-page-editor
• Original: nw-page-editor by Mauricio Villegas
• Page format: omni-us/pageformat