A scanned document is a stack of photographs: you can read it, but your computer cannot. OCR reads each page and lays the recognised words, invisibly, exactly over their picture.
The result looks the same as before, yet Ctrl+F finds words in it, sentences can be copied, and tools such as PDF to Word and Compare PDF have text to work with. The reading is done by the Tesseract engine on your own device.
How to use the OCR PDF tool
- Add the scanned PDF and choose its language.
- Start; the first run downloads the language data once.
- Download the searchable PDF, and the text file if you ticked it.
Popular uses
- Making archives of scanned letters and invoices searchable
- Copying text out of a scanned book chapter
- Preparing scans for PDF to Word or PDF to Excel
Tips for the best result
- A straight, sharp 300 DPI scan reads far better than a phone photo taken at an angle.
- Choose the correct language; the reader uses its dictionary to resolve unclear letters.
Quick facts
| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Works with | |
| Where it runs | In your browser, on your device |
| Account | Not needed |