diff --git a/tests/test_multieurlex_utils.py b/tests/test_multieurlex_utils.py
index 2958d79..41b162c 100644
--- a/tests/test_multieurlex_utils.py
+++ b/tests/test_multieurlex_utils.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import os
+from typing import Any
 from unittest.mock import patch
 
 import datasets
@@ -178,12 +179,12 @@ def _check_pipeline_text(
     ]
 
 
-def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline():
+def _test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline(expected_keys: set[str], load_ocr_data: bool):
     data_dir = f"{TEST_ROOT}/testdata/multieurlex_test"
     lang_pair = {"source": "de", "target": "en"}
 
     ds = datasets.load_from_disk(data_dir)
-    expected_keys = {"celex_id", "labels", "source_text", "target_text"}
+
     expected_non_empty_indices = [0, 1, 3, 4]
     text_expected_non_empty_indices = [i + 1 for i in expected_non_empty_indices]
     with patch(
@@ -194,7 +195,7 @@ def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline():
             level=1,
             lang_pair=lang_pair,
             drop_empty=True,
-            load_ocr_data=False,
+            load_ocr_data=load_ocr_data,
         )
     assert len(dataset_dict) == 3
     for split in ["train", "validation", "test"]:
@@ -213,63 +214,57 @@ def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline():
             ignore_keys=["source_text", "target_text", "ocr_images", "ocr_targets"],
         )
 
+    return dataset_dict, metadata
 
-def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline_ocr():
-    data_dir = f"{TEST_ROOT}/testdata/multieurlex_test"
-    lang_pair = {"source": "de", "target": "en"}
 
-    ds = datasets.load_from_disk(data_dir)
-    expected_keys = {
-        "celex_id",
-        "labels",
-        "source_text",
-        "target_text",
-        "ocr_images",
-        "ocr_targets",
-    }
-    expected_non_empty_indices = [0, 1, 3, 4]
-    text_expected_non_empty_indices = [i + 1 for i in expected_non_empty_indices]
+def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline():
+    expected_keys = {"celex_id", "labels", "source_text", "target_text"}
+    _test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline(
+        expected_keys=expected_keys, load_ocr_data=False
+    )
+
+
+def _create_ocr_data(
+    expected_n_rows: int,
+) -> tuple[list[dict[str, Any]], tuple[list[PILImage.Image]], tuple[list[str]]]:
     dummy_ocr_data = [
         {
             "ocr_images": [PILImage.fromarray(np.ones((5, 5, 3)).astype(np.uint8) * i)]
             * (i + 1),
             "ocr_targets": [f"foo {i}"] * (i + 1),
         }
-        for i in expected_non_empty_indices
+        for i in range(expected_n_rows)
     ]  # different value at each call, different number of items each time (nonzero i+1)
 
+    # unpack data to give expected valuess
     expected_ocr_data, expected_ocr_targets = zip(
         *[x.values() for x in dummy_ocr_data], strict=True
     )
-    with patch(  # noqa: SIM117
-        "arc_spice.data.multieurlex_utils.datasets.load_dataset", return_value=ds
-    ):
-        with patch("arc_spice.data.multieurlex_utils.make_ocr_data") as mock_mod:
-            mock_mod.side_effect = dummy_ocr_data * 3  # handle all 3 splits
-            dataset_dict, metadata = multieurlex_utils.load_multieurlex_for_pipeline(
-                data_dir=data_dir,
-                level=1,
-                lang_pair=lang_pair,
-                drop_empty=True,
-                load_ocr_data=True,
-            )
-    assert len(dataset_dict) == 3
-    for split in ["train", "validation", "test"]:
-        assert set(dataset_dict[split].features.keys()) == expected_keys
-        assert len(dataset_dict[split]) == 4  # 5 items, 1 is empty so dropped
-        _check_pipeline_text(
-            dataset=dataset_dict[split],
-            text_indices_kept=text_expected_non_empty_indices,  # inds start at 1
-            source_lang=lang_pair["source"],
-            target_lang=lang_pair["target"],
-        )
-        _check_keys_untouched(
-            original_dataset=ds[split],
-            dataset=dataset_dict[split],
-            indices_kept=expected_non_empty_indices,  # inds start at 0
-            ignore_keys=["source_text", "target_text", "ocr_images", "ocr_targets"],
-        )
+    return dummy_ocr_data, expected_ocr_data, expected_ocr_targets
+
 
+# same as above but with OCR data checks
+def test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline_ocr():
+    expected_keys = {
+        "celex_id",
+        "labels",
+        "source_text",
+        "target_text",
+        "ocr_images",
+        "ocr_targets",
+    }
+
+    expected_n_rows = 4
+    dummy_ocr_data, expected_ocr_data, expected_ocr_targets = _create_ocr_data(
+        expected_n_rows=expected_n_rows
+    )
+
+    with patch("arc_spice.data.multieurlex_utils.make_ocr_data") as mock_mod:
+        mock_mod.side_effect = dummy_ocr_data * 3  # handle all 3 splits
+        dataset_dict, metadata = _test_load_multieurlex_for_pipeline(
+            expected_keys=expected_keys, load_ocr_data=True
+        )
+    for split in ["train", "validation", "test"]:
         for row_index in range(len(dataset_dict[split])):
             # OCR - images
             #  PIL.PngImagePlugin.PngImageFile vs PIL.Image.Image so compare as np