How to OCR a PDF: Make Scanned Documents Searchable
Use OCR to add a searchable text layer to scanned PDFs. Copy text, search content, and improve accessibility.
If you've ever tried to search or copy text from a scanned PDF and got nothing, that's because the PDF contains only images of text, not actual text. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads those images and adds a searchable text layer on top. Here's how to do it for free.
How to OCR a PDF Online
- Open the OCR PDF tool
- Upload your scanned PDF or image-based PDF
- Select the document language for best accuracy
- Click "Run OCR" and download the searchable PDF
What Does OCR Do?
- Makes text searchable: use Ctrl+F to find words and phrases
- Enables copy-paste: select and copy text from scanned pages
- Improves accessibility: screen readers can now read the document
- Preserves the original: the text layer sits invisibly on top of the scan
When Do You Need OCR?
- Scanned paper documents (contracts, receipts, old records)
- Faxed documents saved as PDF
- Photos of documents taken with a phone camera
- PDFs exported from image-based systems
After OCR: What You Can Do Next
- Convert to Word to edit the recognized text in a word processor
- Extract as plain text for data processing or analysis
- Convert tables to Excel if the scanned document contains tabular data
- Compress the OCR'd file to keep the size manageable
OCR processing happens on our secure servers and files are deleted immediately after processing. No sign-up required.
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