A scanned PDF looks like text but is really a photo of a page. You can’t select it, search it, or convert it cleanly. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads the image and adds a real text layer underneath.
How to tell if you need OCR
Try selecting a sentence in the PDF. If nothing highlights, it’s an image — you need OCR before searching, copying, or converting to Word / Excel.
How to OCR a PDF step by step
- Open OCR PDF and select the scanned file.
- Run OCR — it detects text in the page images and adds a searchable layer.
- Download. The page looks the same but text is now selectable and searchable.
Tips for better accuracy
- Higher-quality scans = better OCR. 300 DPI, straight (not skewed), good contrast.
- De-skew crooked scans first — tilted text hurts recognition.
- Then compress. OCR’d files are still image-heavy; run Compress PDF afterward to shrink them.
Privacy
Scanned documents are usually personal (IDs, statements). OCR runs in your browser — nothing uploaded. No signup, no watermark.
FAQ
Does OCR change how the page looks? No — it adds an invisible text layer; the image stays.
Handwriting? OCR targets printed text; handwriting results vary a lot.
Make your scan searchable with OCR PDF.
Use OCR PDF: Convert scanned PDFs into searchable selectable documents. No signup, nothing uploaded.
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