ToolsBench

OCR — Searchable PDF

Read the text in scans; make image-only PDFs searchable.

Processed on your device
Your files are processed in your browser and never uploaded.

About OCR — Searchable PDF

A scanned PDF looks like a document but behaves like a stack of photos: you can't select a sentence, search for a name, or copy a paragraph. OCR (optical character recognition) fixes that by actually reading the pixels. This tool takes a scan — a PDF or a photo — and either extracts everything it can read into plain text, or produces a searchable PDF: the page still looks exactly like your scan, but an invisible text layer underneath makes it selectable, searchable and indexable. Recognition runs in your browser; the document is never uploaded.

How to use OCR — Searchable PDF

1
Add a scan
An image-only PDF or a photo/screenshot of a document. Sharp, well-lit scans read best.
2
Pick output & language
Searchable PDF keeps the look and adds a hidden text layer; plain text gives you just the words.
3
Run OCR
The engine downloads once (~15 MB), then everything is recognized locally on your device.

Frequently asked questions

Is my document uploaded anywhere?
No. The recognition engine is downloaded to your browser once (like the Remove Background tool's model); your files are processed locally and never leave your device.
What is a searchable PDF exactly?
Your scan's image stays visibly unchanged, and the recognized words are written underneath it as an invisible text layer. Viewers show the scan, while search, text selection and indexing use the hidden layer.
Is there a page limit?
No. Most online OCR tools cap free use at a couple of pages or documents per day because they run on their servers. This one runs on your device and processes pages one at a time, so there's no page cap, no daily quota and no watermark — a 500-page scan works the same as a one-pager, it just takes longer.
How accurate is it?
On clean printed text, very. Accuracy drops with blur, skew, low contrast, small print and handwriting. If a page reads badly, re-scan it straighter and sharper rather than fighting the output.
How long does a big document take?
Roughly a few seconds per page on a typical laptop, all on your device. A long scan can take several minutes — the progress bar moves per page — but it won't run out of memory or hit a limit, because each page is processed and released before the next.
Why did my regular PDF come back unchanged?
If your PDF already has real text, you don't need OCR — use PDF to Text to extract it directly. OCR is for documents whose pages are pictures.