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OCR PDF

Make a scanned PDF searchable. The text is read by your own browser and placed invisibly under each word, so you can search, select and copy it. Nothing is uploaded.

Common questions

  • A scanned PDF is a stack of pictures, so you cannot search it, select a sentence or copy a figure out of it. This tool reads each page, then places the words it found underneath the picture as invisible text. The pages look exactly as before, but Ctrl+F finds words, you can select and copy them, and screen readers can read the document.

What OCR does

A scanned PDF is just photographs of pages. It looks like a document but behaves like an image: you cannot search it, select a sentence or paste a figure into an email. OCR (optical character recognition) reads the pictures and works out which letters are on them. This tool then writes those words back into the PDF as invisible text, lined up under the printed ones, so the pages look identical but now behave like a real document.

Done on your device

Scans are often exactly the documents you would rather not upload: contracts, ID, medical letters. The recognition engine runs in your browser, and the PDF never leaves it. The engine itself comes from this site, not a third-party host, and is about 5 MB the first time (your browser keeps it afterwards).

What to expect

Recognition is a best guess. It is excellent on clean printed pages and weak on handwriting, faint or tiny print, and skewed photographs. It currently reads English only. The pages are read at print resolution on your own processor, so a long scan takes a few seconds per page; you can cancel at any time. Once a PDF is searchable, you can count its words or convert it to Word, which a plain scan cannot do. If you only have a photo or screenshot, use Image to Text.