The free OCR PDF tool turns a scanned document into a searchable one. Upload a scanned or image-based PDF and the tool uses optical character recognition, OCR, to read the text on the page and add an invisible text layer beneath the image. You can then search, select, and copy the text, which you cannot do with a plain scan. It is free, adds no watermark, and needs no account.
Importantly, the visible page is not changed or re-rendered. The text layer is added underneath the existing image, so your document looks exactly as it did, but now behaves like a real text document. This tool works on English-language documents.
How to OCR a PDF
- Upload your scanned PDF. Select the file or drag it onto the upload area.
- Process. The tool reads the text on each page and adds a searchable text layer.
- Download. Save the searchable PDF, which looks the same but is now selectable.
What OCR Can Do, and When to Use It
OCR is for scanned and image-based PDFs, the kind where you can see text on the page but cannot select it because it is really a picture. The tool recognizes that text and makes it searchable and selectable. A PDF that already has real text does not need OCR, and the tool leaves such pages alone rather than re-processing them. Accuracy depends on the quality of the scan: clean, straight, high-resolution scans read very well, while faint, skewed, or low-resolution pages produce more errors. The tool currently recognizes English-language text.
Is My File Safe?
Your files are handled securely. Uploaded PDFs are deleted from our servers immediately after processing, whether it succeeds or fails. The result is stored under a random, unguessable name and stays available to download for up to two hours, then it is automatically and permanently deleted. All uploads and downloads use a secure HTTPS connection.
When to Use OCR on a PDF
- Searching a scanned document. Find a word or figure in a scan you could only read before.
- Copying text from a scan. Pull quotes or data out of a scanned page without retyping.
- Making records accessible. Turn a scanned archive into documents you can search through.
- Preparing for conversion. Add a text layer so a scan can be converted to Word or Excel.
Related PDF Tools
Once your scan is searchable, convert it to Word or to Excel. You can also compress the result.
