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OCR PDF and make scanned documents searchable

  • Runs on your device
  • Works offline once loaded

Scanned PDFs are pictures of text. Run OCR to read the words, download them as a TXT file and get a searchable PDF where you can select and search the text. Recognition happens in your browser.

Language data loads from this site and is cached. Nothing is sent to a server.

How it works

  1. Drop images or PDFs.
  2. Pick the language or languages in the text.
  3. Copy the text or download TXT and searchable PDF files.

Why use it

  • Searchable PDF output.
  • 12 languages.
  • Page ranges.
  • No page limit.

Questions and answers

How long does OCR take?

A few seconds per page on a typical computer.

Is the PDF layout preserved?

Yes. The searchable PDF keeps the original page image and adds an invisible text layer.

Related guides

PDF7 min read

Why is my PDF so big?

Two PDFs with the same number of pages can differ in size a thousand times. We took five real kinds of PDF apart and measured what fills them: photos, scans, fonts or drawings. Each cause has its own fix.

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