🔍 Comic Word Finder

Type a German word → it tells you which comic image that word appears in. Works on your own computer, fully offline. No internet or accounts needed once it's set up.

Example: you type süße → it answers 20260523081231_1.jpg. Now you know the word is in that image.

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📦 Part 1 — One-time setup (do this once)

You install two free programs (Python and Tesseract), download this folder, then run one command. Takes about 15 minutes. Follow every step in order.

💡 This guide is for Windows. If you use a Mac, tell Arin — the steps differ.

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Step 1 — Install Python

Python is the language the tool is written in.

1. Go to https://www.python.org/downloads/
2. Click the big yellow button "Download Python 3.12" (or any 3.12.x).
3. Open the downloaded file (it's in your Downloads folder, name like python-3.12.x-amd64.exe). Double-click it.
4. VERY IMPORTANT: On the first install screen, at the bottom, tick the box ☑️ "Add python.exe to PATH". Do not skip this.
5. Click "Install Now".
6. Wait for it to finish, then click Close.

Check it worked:

• Press the Windows key, type cmd, press Enter (a black window opens).
• Type this and press Enter:

  python --version
  

• If you see something like Python 3.12.10, ✅ done. If it says "not recognized", Python wasn't added to PATH — reinstall and make sure you tick the box in step 4.

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Step 2 — Install Tesseract (the part that reads text from images)

1. Go to https://github.com/UB-Mannheim/tesseract/wiki
2. Under "The latest installers can be downloaded here", click the link for the 64-bit version (file name like tesseract-ocr-w64-setup-5.x.x.exe).
3. Open the downloaded file and click through the installer: Next → I Agree → Next → Next → Install → Finish. (The default options are fine — you don't need to change anything.)

ℹ️ You don't need to download any language pack — German is already included inside this project folder.

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Step 3 — Download this project

1. At the top of this GitHub page, click the green < > Code button.
2. Click "Download ZIP".
3. Open your Downloads folder, find comic-search-main.zip, right-click it → "Extract All…" → Extract.
4. Move the extracted comic-search-main folder somewhere easy to find, like your Desktop.

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Step 4 — Install the helper libraries

1. Open the comic-search-main folder.
2. Click once in the address bar at the top (the part showing the folder path), type cmd, and press Enter. A black window opens already inside this folder.
3. Type this and press Enter:

   python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Wait until it finishes (you'll see "Successfully installed …"). ✅

Setup is done. You never have to do Part 1 again.

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🚀 Part 2 — Everyday use

A) Put your comics in a folder

Download your comic images from Google Drive into one single folder anywhere on your computer (for example Documents\Comics). Remember where it is.

B) Build the index (read all the images)

1. In the comic-search folder, double-click Reindex.bat.
2. The first time, it asks: "Path to your comics folder:"
   • Copy the folder path (open your comics folder, click the address bar, copy the path), paste it into the black window, press Enter.
   • It asks "Remember this folder? [Y/n]" → just press Enter (yes).
3. It now reads every image. 150 images takes a few minutes. ☕
4. When it says "Done.", close the window.

Do this again only when you add new comics. It re-reads just the new ones, so it's fast.

C) Search for a word

1. Double-click Search.bat.
2. It asks "Search word:" → type a German word, press Enter.
3. It prints the image file name(s) that contain that word. 🎉
4. It asks if you want to search another — press Enter for yes, or type n to quit.

That's the whole daily routine: double-click Search.bat, type word, done.

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💡 Handy tips

• Umlauts are optional. Typing suesse finds süße / SÜSSE too. Same for ae ö oe ü ue. Type whatever's easy.
• Not found exactly? It shows the closest matches, because the reader sometimes misreads fancy comic lettering.
• Change comics folder later: open cmd in the folder (Step 4 method) and run

  python search.py --set-folder "C:\full\path\to\new\folder"
  

• See current settings: python search.py --status

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🛠️ If something goes wrong

Problem	Fix
python is not recognized	Python not added to PATH — reinstall, tick the box (Step 1.4).
No module named pytesseract	You skipped Step 4 — run the pip command again.
Could not find tesseract.exe	Tesseract isn't installed (Step 2), or run python search.py --set-tesseract "C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\tesseract.exe"
"German language pack missing"	The tessdata folder must stay next to search.py. Don't move files out of the folder.
Found nothing for a word you can see	Comic lettering may be hard to read — try the umlaut-free spelling, or part of the word.

Still stuck? Send Arin a screenshot of the black window. 🙂

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🔒 Privacy

Everything runs on your computer. No images or words are ever uploaded anywhere.