OCR PDF
Make scanned PDFs searchable.
Recognize text in scanned or image-only PDFs and produce a searchable document. The recognized text becomes an invisible, selectable layer over the original pages — all processed locally with a bundled OCR engine.
Your files are processed locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to a server, ever.
Tip
Drop your file here or click to browse. Everything is processed on this device — nothing is uploaded.
Quick answers
- What does this tool do?
- Make scanned PDFs searchable. Recognize text in scanned or image-only PDFs and produce a searchable document. The recognized text becomes an invisible, selectable layer over the original pages — all processed locally with a bundled OCR engine..
- Is it free?
- Yes — free and unlimited, with no account required and no watermark on the result.
- What files are supported?
- PDF files, up to 100 MB each.
- Where is my file processed?
- Entirely in your browser. Your file never leaves your device — nothing is uploaded to a server.
- What are the limitations?
- supports 105+ languages: English, Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, Turkish, Polish, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean, Bengali, Czech, Danish, Greek, Finnish, and many more — one or more per run for mixed-language documents. Accuracy depends on scan quality and handwriting is not supported. The first run loads the bundled engine and language data from the site (once).
- What happens if processing fails?
- You get a clear message explaining what went wrong and how to fix it (try another file, check the format, or start over). Your original file is never touched.
How to OCR PDF
- Upload the scanned PDF.
- Pick the document language and a recognition quality (DPI).
- Click "Process" — the OCR engine loads once, then scans page by page.
- Download the searchable PDF and copy text from it freely.
Frequently asked questions
Common problems and fixes
- Extracted text is gibberish
Why: the pages are scans — the file has no text layer, so there is nothing real to extract.
Fix: run the OCR PDF tool first, then extract the newly searchable text.
- Table rows merge into one line
Why: detection is position-based, and dense or merged-cell layouts confuse simple row grouping.
Fix: crop the page to the table region first, then extract — or export as XLSX and fix merges in your spreadsheet app.
- Images come out lower quality than the PDF
Why: extraction saves each embedded image at the resolution it was stored at — some PDFs are created with downsampled images.
Fix: check the source quality first; extraction cannot invent resolution that was never embedded.
Who uses OCR PDF?
- Analysts and accountants — pulling tables out of statements and reports straight into a spreadsheet.
- Writers and designers — reusing figures, charts and logos from existing documents.
- Search and AI pipelines — getting plain text out of PDFs for indexing or language-model input.