OCR: make a scanned PDF searchable
Turn scans and photos of documents into searchable, copyable text. Your scan keeps its original look — an invisible text layer is added on top.
How it works
How to oCR: make a scanned PDF searchable
- 1
Open a scanned PDF or images.
- 2
Choose the output: searchable PDF or plain text.
- 3
Click Start OCR and download the result.
Features
Why use our OCR PDF tool
Searchable PDF
Adds an invisible text layer so you can search, select and copy.
Original look
The scanned pages are kept as they are — no quality loss.
On-device OCR
Powered by Tesseract running in your browser via WebAssembly.
Guide
About OCR PDF
A scan is just a picture of text, so you can't search it, select it or copy from it. Optical character recognition (OCR) reads the words in the image and adds an invisible text layer on top, making the PDF searchable while it looks exactly the same.
Recognition uses Tesseract running in your browser with English language data. Pages that already contain real text are skipped automatically, which saves time on mixed documents.
Tips for best results
- Clear, straight scans at 200–300 DPI give the best accuracy.
- Photographed a page at an angle? Straighten it with Scan to PDF first.
- Choose “Both” to get the searchable PDF and a .txt file together.
How your file stays on your device
OCR PDF runs entirely inside your web browser. When you choose a file, your browser reads it into memory on your own device, a background Web Worker does the processing, and the result is handed straight back to you as a download. There is no upload step, no server that receives your document and no copy kept anywhere — close the tab and it is gone. That makes it safe for contracts, IDs, medical letters and anything else you would rather not send to a stranger's server. How in-browser processing works
FAQ
OCR PDF: frequently asked questions
Which languages are supported?
English is supported out of the box. Recognition works best on clear scans at 200–300 DPI.
Why is OCR slow?
Text recognition is CPU-intensive and runs on your device. Expect a few seconds per page.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Text recognition happens entirely inside your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your files never leave your device, and nothing is stored after you close the tab.
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