Basira: A Private, Offline Document Reader I Built for My Grandmother

Description and use

Basira is a private, offline document reader that enables a low‑vision user to capture, OCR, simplify, and listen to documents locally, preserving privacy and independence.

Problem

My grandmother has low vision and cannot read small print on bills or medicine leaflets, making her dependent on others to understand important documents.

Outcome

Basira runs entirely offline on a local computer, keeping sensitive documents private, and provides an accessible interface in Arabic and English for low‑vision users.

Workflow

• Capture a photo or upload a document
• OCR with Tesseract converts image to text
• Local LLM (Ollama qwen2.5:3b) rewrites text in simple language and highlights key info
• Piper TTS reads original or simplified text aloud

Evidence

Basira reads it aloud and explains it in simple words

Source

Everything runs on your own computer, with no cloud, no subscription, and no API keys.

Source

The flow is: photo → Tesseract → local LLM via Ollama → Piper → audio + text

Source