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OCR PDF

Make scanned PDFs searchable by adding a hidden text layer.

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This tool runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

About OCR PDF

OCR PDF renders each page, recognises the text with Tesseract and rebuilds a PDF where the text is invisible but selectable and searchable over the scanned image.

For scanned contracts, old letters and photographed notes you want to search, copy from or read with a screen reader.

What it does

  • Searchable, selectable text
  • Keeps the look of the original scan
  • Recognised text is never stored after the job

How to use OCR PDF

  1. Upload a scanned PDF.
  2. Choose the language of the document.
  3. Select Run OCR. Longer documents take a while.
  4. Download the searchable PDF.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is OCR?

Clean, straight scans at 300 dpi give the best results. Handwriting, low resolution and skewed pages reduce accuracy.

Do you keep the extracted text?

No. Text exists only inside your output PDF and is deleted with it after the retention period.

Limits and privacy

The page limit for OCR is set separately and is lower than other tools because OCR is slow. Output is rasterised at 200 dpi, so vector content in mixed PDFs becomes an image.

Everything happens on your device, so your content never reaches our server.

Processing speed depends on your device. Files up to 100 MB are supported; very large documents work best on a computer.

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