# MonkeyOCR v1.5 Technical Report: Unlocking Robust Document Parsing for Complex Patterns

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10390 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10390/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal RAG, one of 15 directions in Retrieval-augmented generation.
- Builds on 26 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Nov 2025.

## Placed in

- Retrieval-augmented generation / [Multimodal RAG](https://mlsanity.com/rag/multimodal-rag/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [InternVL: Scaling up Vision Foundation Models and Aligning for Generic Visual-Linguistic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14238/) (2023)
- [DETRs Beat YOLOs on Real-time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08069/) (2023)
- [YOLOv10: Real-Time End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14458/) (2024)
- [LayoutLMv3: Pre-training for Document AI with Unified Text and Image Masking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08387/) (2022)
- [OCRBench: On the Hidden Mystery of OCR in Large Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07895/) (2023)
- [Monkey: Image Resolution and Text Label Are Important Things for Large Multi-modal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06607/) (2023)
- [MinerU: An Open-Source Solution for Precise Document Content Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18839/) (2024)
- [Image-based table recognition: data, model, and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10683/) (2019)
- [DeepSeek-OCR: Contexts Optical Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18234/) (2025)
- [TextMonkey: An OCR-Free Large Multimodal Model for Understanding Document](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04473/) (2024)
- [OCRBench v2: An Improved Benchmark for Evaluating Large Multimodal Models on Visual Text Localization and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.00321/) (2024)
- [OmniDocBench: Benchmarking Diverse PDF Document Parsing with Comprehensive Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07626/) (2024)
- [PaddleOCR 3.0 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05595/) (2025)
- [olmOCR: Unlocking Trillions of Tokens in PDFs with Vision Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18443/) (2025)
- [MinerU2.5: A Decoupled Vision-Language Model for Efficient High-Resolution Document Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22186/) (2025)
- [mPLUG-DocOwl2: High-resolution Compressing for OCR-free Multi-page Document Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.03420/) (2024)
- [PP-OCRv3: More Attempts for the Improvement of Ultra Lightweight OCR System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03001/) (2022)
- [MonkeyOCR: Document Parsing with a Structure-Recognition-Relation Triplet Paradigm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05218/) (2025)
- [LayoutReader: Pre-training of Text and Layout for Reading Order Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11591/) (2021)
- [Dolphin: Document Image Parsing via Heterogeneous Anchor Prompting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14059/) (2025)
- [Tabular Transformers for Modeling Multivariate Time Series](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01843/) (2020)
- [olmOCR 2: Unit Test Rewards for Document OCR](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19817/) (2025)
- [UniMERNet: A Universal Network for Real-World Mathematical Expression Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15254/) (2024)
- [DocGenome: An Open Large-scale Scientific Document Benchmark for Training and Testing Multi-modal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11633/) (2024)
- [POINTS-Reader: Distillation-Free Adaptation of Vision-Language Models for Document Conversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01215/) (2025)
- [PingAn-VCGroup's Solution for ICDAR 2021 Competition on Scientific Table Image Recognition to Latex](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01846/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [PaddleOCR-VL-1.5: Towards a Multi-Task 0.9B VLM for Robust In-the-Wild Document Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21957/) (2026)
- [Dolphin-v2: Universal Document Parsing via Scalable Anchor Prompting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.05384/) (2026)
- [FireRed-OCR Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01840/) (2026)
- [AgenticOCR: Parsing Only What You Need for Efficient Retrieval-Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.24134/) (2026)
- [MDPBench: A Benchmark for Multilingual Document Parsing in Real-World Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28130/) (2026)
- [Beyond the Grid: Layout-Informed Multi-Vector Retrieval with Parsed Visual Document Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01666/) (2026)
- [Visual-ERM: Reward Modeling for Visual Equivalence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13224/) (2026)
- [MinerU-Popo: Universal Post-Processing Model for Structured Document Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24973/) (2026)
- [StrucTab: A Structured Optimization Framework for Table Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29905/) (2026)
- [Parser-Oriented Structural Refinement for a Stable Layout Interface in Document Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02692/) (2026)
- [DocPO: Advancing Document Policy Optimization via Tailored Step-Aware Rewards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00536/) (2026)
- [TeleOCR: Navigating Document Parsing Across Digital and Camera-Captured Documents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12898/) (2026)
- [DocClaw: A Unified Agentic System for Intelligent Document Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.18685/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Document parsing is a core task in document intelligence, supporting applications such as information extraction, retrieval-augmented generation, and automated document analysis. However, real-world documents often feature complex layouts with multi-level tables, embedded images or formulas, and cross-page structures, which remain challenging for existing OCR systems. We introduce MonkeyOCR v1.5, a unified vision-language framework that enhances both layout understanding and content recognition through a two-stage pipeline. The first stage employs a large multimodal model to jointly predict layout and reading order, leveraging visual information to ensure sequential consistency. The second stage performs localized recognition of text, formulas, and tables within detected regions, maintaining high visual fidelity while reducing error propagation. To address complex table structures, we propose a visual consistency-based reinforcement learning scheme that evaluates recognition quality via render-and-compare alignment, improving structural accuracy without manual annotations. Additionally, two specialized modules, Image-Decoupled Table Parsing and Type-Guided Table Merging, are introduced to enable reliable parsing of tables containing embedded images and reconstruction of tables crossing pages or columns. Comprehensive experiments on OmniDocBench v1.5 demonstrate that MonkeyOCR v1.5 achieves state-of-the-art performance, outperforming PPOCR-VL and MinerU 2.5 while showing exceptional robustness in visually complex document scenarios. A trial link can be found at https://github.com/Yuliang-Liu/MonkeyOCR .
