Does my file get uploaded?

No — and that is the whole point. The text is recognized entirely in your browser by an on-device engine; the PDF never leaves your computer and never reaches a server. Every other OCR tool uploads your file to do this. Yours are usually the most sensitive documents you own — IDs, contracts, medical and financial records — so this matters here more than anywhere.

It uses Tesseract, the same open-source engine behind many professional tools, and shows you its confidence for what it read — it never pretends to be perfect. On a clean, straight scan of printed text it is very accurate; faint, skewed, or low-resolution scans are harder. Always proofread numbers and names.

Does it work on handwriting?

No. The engine reads printed and typed text, not handwriting. If you run it on a handwritten page it will tell you the confidence is low rather than hand you convincing-looking nonsense.

What if the PDF already has text?

Then OCR isn't needed, and the tool says so — it extracts the real, existing text directly instead of re-recognizing it (which would be slower and less accurate). OCR is only for scans and images that have no text layer.

What's a searchable PDF?

It's your scan, looking exactly the same — but with the recognized text added as an invisible layer behind the image. The page still looks like the original scan, yet you can now search it (Ctrl-F), select text, and copy from it, in any PDF reader. Choose it instead of plain text when you want to keep the document's look. Or pick plain text for just the words as a .txt file.

PDF Tools

OCR a scanned PDF

Turn a scanned PDF into selectable text — or a searchable PDF that looks identical to your scan but is now searchable and copyable. Recognized entirely in your browser, so the document never leaves your device. Every other OCR uploads your file; this one doesn't. No account, no email, no limits.

Frequently asked questions

Does my file get uploaded?: No — and that is the whole point. The text is recognized entirely in your browser by an on-device engine; the PDF never leaves your computer and never reaches a server. Every other OCR tool uploads your file to do this. Yours are usually the most sensitive documents you own — IDs, contracts, medical and financial records — so this matters here more than anywhere.
How accurate is it?: It uses Tesseract, the same open-source engine behind many professional tools, and shows you its confidence for what it read — it never pretends to be perfect. On a clean, straight scan of printed text it is very accurate; faint, skewed, or low-resolution scans are harder. Always proofread numbers and names.
Does it work on handwriting?: No. The engine reads printed and typed text, not handwriting. If you run it on a handwritten page it will tell you the confidence is low rather than hand you convincing-looking nonsense.
What if the PDF already has text?: Then OCR isn't needed, and the tool says so — it extracts the real, existing text directly instead of re-recognizing it (which would be slower and less accurate). OCR is only for scans and images that have no text layer.
What's a searchable PDF?: It's your scan, looking exactly the same — but with the recognized text added as an invisible layer behind the image. The page still looks like the original scan, yet you can now search it (Ctrl-F), select text, and copy from it, in any PDF reader. Choose it instead of plain text when you want to keep the document's look. Or pick plain text for just the words as a .txt file.

Frequently asked questions

Related tools