What does OCR do to my PDF?

It recognizes the text in scanned pages and adds it as an invisible layer, so you can search, select and copy it. The pages look exactly the same.

What if some pages already have text?

By default only scanned pages are processed; pages that already contain text are left as they are. Choose “Redo all pages” to recognize every page again.

Can it read handwriting?

OCR works best on printed text. Clear block handwriting is sometimes recognized, but cursive handwriting usually is not.

How many pages can I OCR?

Up to 300 pages per PDF. Large documents take a few minutes.

Files are sent over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers and deleted automatically within an hour. You can also delete them immediately from the download screen. We never share or read your documents.

Convert PDF

OCR PDF

Make scanned PDFs searchable and copyable with text recognition.

Files up to 2 GB
Encrypted & private
Auto-deleted within 1 hour
Free, no sign-up, no watermark

How it works

How to use OCR PDF

1
Select the scanned PDF you want to make searchable.
2
Choose the language(s) of the document.
3
Click Make searchable and download the PDF with selectable text.

Looks the same

Your pages keep their exact appearance; an invisible text layer is added on top.

Fixes scans

Crooked pages are straightened and sideways pages are turned upright.

Three languages

English, Hindi and Arabic, using Tesseract's most accurate models.

FAQ

OCR PDF questions

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