What Is PDF OCR?
PDF OCR (Optical Character Recognition) converts scanned PDFs and image-based documents into searchable, selectable text. If you have a PDF from a scanner, fax, or photograph that you can’t copy text from, this tool makes it readable and searchable.
How to Use This Tool
Upload a scanned or image-based PDF and select your preferred language. The OCR engine processes each page, detecting and extracting text from the images. Once complete, download the new searchable PDF where you can highlight, copy, and search text. All processing happens in your browser.
Why Use PDF OCR?
Professional OCR software can be expensive and often requires uploading documents to cloud services. This tool runs OCR entirely in-browser, so sensitive scanned documents like medical records, legal filings, and financial statements stay on your device. For a detailed walkthrough, see our step-by-step guide.
See also: The PDF Text Extractor pulls only the embedded text layer; for scanned PDFs without one, run OCR first. The Image OCR extracts text from photos and screenshots (PNG/JPG) rather than only PDFs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is PDF OCR?+
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) converts text inside a scanned PDF image into real, selectable, searchable text. This tool uses Tesseract, an open-source OCR engine, running entirely in your browser.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?+
No. Every page is rendered and recognized on your device. The only network traffic is downloading the language data file once, which is then cached.
What languages are supported?+
English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. Select your source language before starting.
Can I download a searchable PDF?+
Yes. You can download the extracted text as TXT, or generate a new PDF with an invisible text layer so the document becomes searchable while looking identical to the original.
Which OCR engine does the tool use?+
Tesseract.js — the same Tesseract engine that powers commercial OCR products, compiled to WebAssembly so it runs entirely in your browser without sending images to a server.
How many languages can be selected at once?+
Up to three. Useful for multilingual documents (English + Spanish, or Japanese + English). Each added language slightly slows recognition because the engine tries all selected language models per page.
How accurate is the OCR?+
Clean modern scans at 300dpi typically achieve 98–99% character accuracy. Old typewritten or handwritten documents drop into the 70–85% range and benefit from a post-OCR review.
Does the OCR preserve the original page layout?+
Yes — the tool produces a searchable PDF where the OCR’d text layer is positioned invisibly behind the original page image. Selection, search, and copy work as on a born-digital PDF.
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Tesseract.js runs the OCR locally in your browser, with language models loaded on demand from your chosen pack — English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. The result is a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer over the original page image, so the document looks identical but Cmd-F now works. Scanned receipts, old contracts, and book chapters become greppable without paying for Acrobat Pro.