OCR a scanned PDF
Recognise the text in a scanned PDF. Download a searchable PDF, or just the extracted text.
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How to use OCR PDF
- Select your scanned PDF.
- Choose the language of the text and the output you want.
- Press Run OCR and download the result.
A scanned PDF is just pictures of pages, so you can't search it or copy its text. OCR (optical character recognition) reads those pictures and adds an invisible text layer, so Ctrl+F and copy and paste start working.
Recognition runs in your browser using open-source Tesseract, so private documents are never uploaded. The first run downloads the language data for your chosen language, which takes a few seconds. Clear, straight scans give the best results.
Frequently asked questions
Which languages are supported?
English, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. You can also combine English with another language.
How accurate is it?
Clean, high-resolution scans of printed text work best. Handwriting, very small text and decorative Urdu calligraphy styles may contain mistakes.
Is my file uploaded?
No. Recognition runs locally in your browser.
Why is it slow on large files?
OCR is heavy work done on your own device. Try fewer pages at a time for large documents.