OCR PDF

Make a scanned PDF searchable and selectable

A scanned contract, an old textbook chapter, a photographed receipt: these all look like text on the page, but a PDF viewer sees only a picture, so you cannot search, select, or copy a single word from it. OCR PDF reads the text on each scanned page and adds an invisible, searchable text layer underneath it.

You upload one PDF and choose a language for the text recognition. Auto detect handles most files and works page by page, which helps with documents where the language changes partway through; or pick one or more languages by hand, holding Ctrl or Cmd, for pages that mix English and French. Processing happens on our servers over an encrypted connection, and your file is deleted within 60 minutes.

What you get back

The output looks identical to the original scan, but now you can search it, select and copy text, and highlight passages the way you would in any digital document.

• A crisp, straight, high resolution scan comes back far more accurate than a blurry or skewed photo.
• Handwriting and unusual fonts recognize less reliably than printed text.
• A few conversion tools elsewhere on the site also read scanned text automatically, but only this one hands back a searchable PDF you keep.
• Free use includes a short ad; a paid plan removes ads and raises the file size ceiling.