Turn scanned or image PDFs into searchable, selectable, copyable text with OCR.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads the text inside scanned pages and photos and adds a real, invisible text layer on top — the page looks identical, but the words become searchable, selectable and copyable. Powered by OCRmyPDF (Tesseract). A searchable PDF also converts cleanly to Word, Excel and plain text. Files are processed securely and never stored.
Upload your file using the tool above.
Adjust any settings to your preference.
Click the process button and wait for results.
Download your output using the download button.
Open it and try to select a line of text with your cursor. If nothing highlights, or Ctrl+F finds no words you can clearly see on the page, it is a scan — a picture of a document rather than a document. OCR reads those pictures and adds a real text layer, making the file searchable and copyable.
No. The original page image is preserved exactly and the recognised text is placed in an invisible layer behind it. Visually the PDF is unchanged, but you can now select, search and copy the words. That invisible layer is also what lets a scan convert cleanly to Word, Excel or plain text afterwards.
On a clean, straight scan at 300 DPI or better, accuracy is typically very high. It drops with low-resolution scans, skewed or curled pages, handwriting, unusual decorative fonts, and heavy background noise or shadows. If results disappoint, rescanning at a higher resolution with the page flat usually helps more than anything else.
Yes, PDF OCR — Make Scanned PDF Searchable is completely free. No signup, no account, and no watermark on outputs. A Pro tier is available for 100 AI ops/day and larger file sizes.
PDF OCR — Make Scanned PDF Searchable uploads your file over an encrypted connection to our own processing server, converts it, and returns the result. The file is deleted immediately after processing and is never used for anything else. It is not sent to any third party, and we keep no copies.
Drop a scanned PDF to make it searchable
Turn images of text into real, selectable text
Drop your file into the stage to begin.
What is OCR: Optical Character Recognition reads the text inside images of a document — a scan or a photo — and adds a real, invisible text layer on top. The page looks the same, but the words become selectable, searchable, and copyable.
When to use it: If you can’t select or search text in a PDF, it’s a scan or image and needs OCR. Run it through here first, then it will select, copy, and convert to Word/Excel cleanly.
Privacy: Your PDF is sent over an encrypted connection, processed in memory, and deleted immediately after — never stored.