The present invention provides method and system for preprocessing an image including one or more of Arabic text and non-text items for Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The method includes determining a plurality of components associated with one or more of the Arabic text and the non-text items, wherein a component includes a set of connected pixels. A first set of characteristic parameters is then calculated for the plurality of components. The plurality of components are subsequently merged based on the first set of characteristic parameters to form one or more of one or more sub-words and one or more words.