PDF OCR
A scanned PDF is a picture of each page, so you cannot search it or copy from it. This reads the pictures and gives you back a searchable PDF that looks the same, a Word document of the text, or a plain text file. The recognition runs on your own device: the scan is never uploaded, and there is no paid service behind it.
Choose your file
Drop your file here
PDF files. Nothing is uploaded — your file stays on this device.
Settings
Choosing the right language matters more than anything else for accuracy.
Recognition takes a few seconds per page. For a long document, start with a few pages.
Add a file to continue.
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About PDF OCR
- What does PDF OCR do?
- A scanned PDF is a picture of each page, so you cannot search it or copy from it. This reads the pictures and gives you back a searchable PDF that looks the same, a Word document of the text, or a plain text file. The recognition runs on your own device: the scan is never uploaded, and there is no paid service behind it.
- Who is it for?
- Students handing in work, professionals sending contracts and reports, administrators preparing submissions, and anyone who has hit an email attachment limit. No technical knowledge is needed.
- Is it free?
- Yes. PDF OCR is free with no account, no watermark on your output, no daily cap and no trial period. Because it runs on your own device it costs us nothing to run, which is why there is no catch.
- Is it safe to use with confidential files?
- Yes, and not because we promise to behave. PDF OCR never sends your file anywhere — the work happens in your browser. There is no upload, so there is no copy of your document in our systems at any point.
- What file formats are supported?
- Input: PDF. Output: PDF, DOCX, TXT.
- Are there any limits?
- Recognition takes a few seconds per page and is limited by your device, not by us. English, Urdu and Arabic are available. Clean printed text reads well; handwriting and faint scans do not.
- How accurate is it?
- On a clean scan of printed text, very good. Accuracy falls with small print, skewed pages, coloured backgrounds and low-resolution scans. The tool shows the engine's own confidence score and warns you when it is low. Always proofread numbers and names.
- Can it read handwriting?
- Not reliably. The engine is trained on printed type. Neat block capitals sometimes work; ordinary handwriting usually does not, and we would rather say so than let you find out on an important document.
- Why does the first run take longer?
- The language file (one to three megabytes) is downloaded the first time you use a language. Your browser keeps it afterwards, so later runs start straight away.
How to use it
- 1
Add your file
Drag it onto the box above, or use Browse files. On a phone you can also take a photo or pick from your camera roll.
- 2
Check the settings
Sensible defaults are already chosen. Most people never need to change them.
- 3
Run it
The progress bar shows real progress, not a decorative animation. Everything happens on your device.
- 4
Preview the result
Look at the output before you download. If it is not right, adjust a setting and run it again — nothing has been saved anywhere.
- 5
Download
Save the file. Closing this tab discards it from memory, so download anything you want to keep.