--- a/scripts/ocr_caller.py
+++ b/scripts/ocr_caller.py
@@ -7,8 +7,11 @@
 
 import argparse
 import base64
+import glob
 import json
 import os
+import shutil
+import subprocess
 import sys
 import tempfile
 import time
@@ -148,6 +151,56 @@
 
 
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Local Tesseract fallback
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+def _tesseract_available() -> bool:
+    return shutil.which("tesseract") is not None
+
+
+def _run_tesseract(file_path: str, file_type: int) -> dict:
+    """Run local Tesseract OCR as a fallback when the remote API fails."""
+    try:
+        tmpdir = tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix="ocr_tess_")
+        image_paths = []
+
+        if file_type == 1:  # PDF — convert pages to images via pdftoppm
+            if not shutil.which("pdftoppm"):
+                return _error_result("FALLBACK_ERROR: pdftoppm not found; cannot convert PDF")
+            prefix = os.path.join(tmpdir, "page")
+            subprocess.run(
+                ["pdftoppm", "-png", "-r", "300", file_path, prefix],
+                check=True, capture_output=True,
+            )
+            image_paths = sorted(glob.glob(f"{prefix}*.png"))
+            if not image_paths:
+                return _error_result("FALLBACK_ERROR: pdftoppm produced no images")
+        else:
+            image_paths = [file_path]
+
+        all_text_parts = []
+        raw_pages = []
+        for img in image_paths:
+            proc = subprocess.run(
+                ["tesseract", img, "stdout", "--psm", "3"],
+                capture_output=True, text=True,
+            )
+            page_text = proc.stdout.strip()
+            all_text_parts.append(page_text)
+            raw_pages.append({"image": img, "text": page_text, "stderr": proc.stderr.strip()})
+
+        full_text = "\n".join(all_text_parts)
+        return {
+            "ok": True,
+            "text": full_text,
+            "result": {"engine": "tesseract-local", "pages": raw_pages},
+            "error": None,
+        }
+    except Exception as exc:
+        return _error_result(f"FALLBACK_ERROR: {exc}")
+
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Output helpers
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
@@ -211,6 +264,15 @@
         # --- Call API -----------------------------------------------------
         result = _call_api(config, image_b64, file_type)
 
+        # --- Fallback to local Tesseract if remote API failed -------------
+        if not result["ok"] and _tesseract_available() and args.file_path:
+            print(
+                f"Remote API failed ({result['error']['message']}); "
+                "falling back to local Tesseract…",
+                file=sys.stderr,
+            )
+            result = _run_tesseract(args.file_path, file_type)
+
     _emit(result, args)