#1289·docling

Setting settings.debug.visualize_cells=True/False causes different table output

Author: kuopchingCreated Apr 3, 2025Updated Sep 14, 2026
Labelsbug

Bug

I have pre-ocr pdf with following layout.

Logo                      Page Header 
Key-value Items                                       Figure
           
Section Header1
Table1

Section Header2
Table2
  1. settings.debug.visualize_cells=False, only Table2 is detected.
  2. settings.debug.visualize_cells=True, Table1 and Table2 are detected and merged to one table. Both outcomes are wrong .

Second case can be solved by modifying file docling/models/page_preprocessing_model.py before:

 if settings.debug.visualize_cells:
            draw_text_boxes(page.get_image(scale=1.0), page.cells)

after:

 if settings.debug.visualize_cells:
            draw_text_boxes(page.get_image(scale=1.0).copy(), page.cells)

...

Steps to reproduce

Play with settings.debug.visualize_cells ...

Docling version

Docling version: 2.28.4 Docling Core version: 2.25.0 Docling IBM Models version: 3.4.1 Docling Parse version: 4.0.0 Python: cpython-310 (3.10.15) Platform: Linux-5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2-x86_64-with-glibc2.35 ...

Python version

Python 3.10.15 ...