OCR PDF - Turn Scanned Pages into Searchable Text
Run optical character recognition on scanned PDFs directly in your browser and get a document you can search, select, and copy from.
Drag files here or click the button
Maximum file size: 100 MB
No account, no watermark. Your files are not stored on our servers after processing.
A scanned contract, a photographed receipt, or an old faxed report is really just a picture of text as far as your computer is concerned - you can't search it, highlight a clause, or copy a phone number out of it. This tool reads the shapes on each page, recognizes the characters, and rebuilds an invisible text layer underneath the original image, so the page looks exactly the same but now behaves like a normal digital document.
The recognition engine supports dozens of languages, including mixed-language pages with Latin, Cyrillic, or accented characters, and it keeps the original page layout, columns, and image quality untouched. Everything runs after you upload the file and finishes in the same session - nothing is kept on the server once your download is ready, which matters if the scan contains invoices, IDs, or medical forms.
How to use OCR PDF online
- 1
Upload your scanned PDF
Drag in a scanned document, photographed pages saved as PDF, or a file that mixes real text with image-only pages up to 100 MB.
- 2
Choose the recognition language
Pick the language (or languages) that match the document so accented letters, special characters, and technical terms are read correctly.
- 3
Run text recognition
The engine analyzes each page, detects lines and paragraphs, and builds a hidden text layer that mirrors the visible content.
- 4
Download the searchable PDF
Save the result - the pages look identical to the original scan, but you can now search, select, and copy text from any page.
When people use this tool
Archiving paper records
Convert boxes of scanned contracts or invoices into a searchable archive so any clause or line item can be found by keyword instead of manual page-flipping.
Academic and legal research
Make scanned journal articles, court filings, or historical documents citable and quotable by extracting selectable text from image-only pages.
Data entry from paper forms
Pull addresses, totals, or reference numbers out of scanned forms and paste them into spreadsheets instead of retyping them by hand.
Accessibility improvements
Give screen readers something to read by adding a text layer to scanned handouts, manuals, or reports that were previously pure images.
What you get
Multi-language recognition
Supports major world languages and can handle documents where more than one language appears on the same page.
Original layout preserved
The visible page stays exactly as scanned - recognition adds an invisible text layer without altering images, fonts, or formatting.
Batch page processing
Multi-page scans are processed page by page automatically, so a 50-page report doesn't need to be split up first.
No installation required
Runs entirely in the browser tab you already have open, with no desktop OCR software or plugins to install.