OCR PDF · Free online tool

Let your scans say more.

Turn printed words in a scan into searchable, copyable text. Run OCR in English or Spanish, on the pages you choose.

Run PDF OCR
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Your file opens locally. No document is uploaded.

OCR PDF

From a scan to searchable.

English · Spanish · Local recognition

From file to finished

How to make a PDF searchable

Three simple steps
  1. 01

    Open the scan

    Choose a PDF with scanned or image-based pages. Check that pages are upright and the text is legible.

  2. 02

    Set language and pages

    Choose English or Spanish, select the pages to recognize and set a resolution. Start with the default 200 DPI and adjust if needed.

  3. 03

    Run, review and export

    Run OCR, then download the PDF. Recognized words are added as an invisible text layer. Test search and copy in the saved file and check important details.

What OCR adds to your PDF

The page keeps its visual appearance while recognized words are added in a text layer. This can help you find a phrase, copy a passage or search a folder of documents with compatible software. It does not recreate the page as fully editable text and layout.

Help recognition get a better result

Upright pages, strong contrast and sharp printed text are easier to recognize than skewed, blurry or low-resolution scans. Handwriting, complex tables and unusual typefaces may produce poor results. Always check names, amounts and identifiers against the original.

Processing time depends on your device

OCR runs locally with Tesseract. The browser loads the engine and language data before recognition. Large documents and higher resolutions use more memory and take longer, so try a small page range before processing a long scan.

Good to know

A few common questions.

Which OCR languages are included?

English and Spanish are included. Other recognition languages are not currently offered in the interface.

Does OCR translate the document?

No. OCR recognizes text in the selected language. It does not translate that text into another language.

Will OCR make every word correct?

No. Recognition is an estimate and mistakes are possible. Review the output, especially legal names, reference numbers, dates and amounts.

Keep the task moving

These might come in handy.

Ready when you are.

Make English and Spanish scans searchable.

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