OCR — Make Scanned PDFs Searchable

Scanned PDFs are basically images — you can't select or search their text. The OCR tool recognizes text in those scans and adds an invisible text layer on top.

After processing, your PDF looks the same but you can now search for words, copy text, and even extract content. Essential for digitized archives, scanned receipts, or any image-based document you need to work with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which languages does OCR support?

English by default. The OCR engine (Tesseract) supports many languages, but additional language packs may need to load.

How accurate is the text recognition?

Good for clean, high-resolution scans. Handwriting, poor scans, and unusual fonts will produce lower accuracy.

Does it create a searchable PDF?

It extracts the text content. You can copy the recognized text or use it with other tools like [PDF to Word](/pdf/pdf-to-word) or [PDF to EPUB](/ebook/pdf-to-epub) for further conversion.