OCR PDF
Make a scanned PDF searchable and selectable by recognizing its text. Free, with no sign-up.
This tool uses our server. Your file is sent over an encrypted connection, processed, and deleted as soon as the result comes back. It is never stored or shared. How files are handled
OCR PDF recognizes the text in a scanned PDF and adds it as an invisible layer, so you can search, select and copy the text while the pages look exactly the same. It is useful for scanned contracts, receipts, books and old documents. Choose the document's language for the best results; pages that already contain text are left as they are. Recognition uses Tesseract and OCRmyPDF on our server, and the file is deleted right after.
How to use OCR PDF
- 1
Choose your scanned PDF
Drop or choose a PDF up to 30 MB.
- 2
Pick the language
Choose the language the document is written in.
- 3
Make it searchable
Download the PDF with selectable, searchable text.
What it does
- Looks the same
- The text layer is invisible; the scan is unchanged.
- Ten languages
- English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Turkish.
- Skips text pages
- Pages that already have text are not processed again.
- Files deleted right away
- Nothing is kept after recognition.
Questions
How accurate is it?
Clean, straight scans at 300 dpi give very good results. Handwriting, low-resolution photos and unusual fonts are recognized less reliably.
Can I convert the result to Word?
Yes. Once the PDF is searchable, PDF to Word can turn its text into an editable document.
Is my file uploaded?
Yes. This tool needs our server, so the file is sent over an encrypted connection, processed, and deleted as soon as the result is sent back. It is never stored, shared or looked at. Most other tools on this site run entirely in your browser.
Is there a size limit?
Files can be up to 30 MB. Very large or complex files can take up to a couple of minutes.