Abstract: A method, computer system, and a computer program product for optical character recognition training are provided. A text image and plain text labels for the text image may be received. The text image may include words. The plain text labels may include machine-encoded text corresponding to the words. Semantic feature vectors for the words, respectively, may be generated based on the plain text label. The text image, the plain text labels, and the semantic feature vectors may be input together into a machine learning model to train the machine learning model for optical character recognition. The plain text labels and the semantic feature vectors may be constraints for the training.