OCR PDF
Make a scanned PDF searchable and its text selectable, in your browser
Drop a scanned PDF here
Or choose one; it's read in your browser and never uploaded
Read by Tesseract running in your browser. Clear scans of printed text read best; handwriting isn't read. The pages are kept as they are, the text added under them; for an image, use Image to Text.
How to make a scanned PDF searchable
- Drop your scanned PDF on the page or choose it.
- Pick the languages its text is in, up to three.
- Select Make it searchable: each page is read and its words added under it; download the PDF, and copy the text read if you need it.
Questions
What does OCR do to my PDF?
Nothing you can see: each scanned page stays as it is, and the words read on it are added invisibly in the same places, so you can search the PDF, select and copy its text, and it's found by your computer's search.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The text is read by Tesseract running in your browser, on your device; the language models come from this site and are kept by your browser after the first time.
Which languages are read?
English, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian, up to three at once.
How good is the result?
Clear scans of printed text read very well; blurry, skewed or handwritten pages less so. The text read is shown, to check it.
What about pages that already have text?
They're kept as they are, unless you choose to read them too.