OCR PDF Online Free | Make PDF Searchable
Turn scanned pages into text you can select, copy and search.
A scanned contract looks like a document but behaves like a photograph: Ctrl+F finds nothing and you cannot copy a single line. Optical character recognition fixes that by reading the pixels and writing an invisible text layer over the page. Here that recognition runs inside your tab through a WebAssembly build of Tesseract, page by page, so a payslip or passport scan is never uploaded to be read. The page image is untouched — you simply gain selectable, searchable text on top of it, plus a plain-text copy of everything found.
Drop a scanned PDF to make searchable
Sharp 200–300 dpi scans give the best recognition.
Files stay on this device — nothing is uploaded.
Processing Happens in Your Browser
Processing happens locally on your device. Your file does not need to be uploaded to our processing server.
How it works
- 1
Add the scanned PDF
Drop the file in. It is opened locally and never transmitted.
- 2
Choose the language
Pick the language on the page so the recogniser uses the right model.
- 3
Run the recognition
Pages are read one at a time, with live progress for each page.
- 4
Review and correct
Each page scan sits next to its text so you can fix any misread word before saving.
- 5
Download
Save the searchable PDF, a Word document or the plain text — all with your corrections.
Features and benefits
Recognition in the browser
A WebAssembly OCR engine runs in a worker thread inside your tab — the document itself is never uploaded.
Real text layer
Words are placed at their exact coordinates so highlighting, copying and Ctrl+F work in any PDF reader.
Many languages
English, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Urdu, Russian and more, including right-to-left scripts.
Page-by-page progress
A clear status shows which page is being read, so long documents never look stuck.
Edit before you download
Every page scan is shown beside an editable text box, right-to-left aware, so you can fix typos before saving.
Word and text export
Download a .docx with one Word page per scanned page, copy the text, or save it as plain .txt.
Original pages preserved
The scan is left exactly as it was; the text layer is invisible and sits on top.
Supported formats and limits
Any unencrypted PDF, scanned or digital. Output is a searchable PDF, a Word .docx or a plain .txt file. Languages include English, Arabic, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hindi, Urdu, Russian and Turkish.
Everything runs inside your browser tab, so the practical ceiling is your device's available memory rather than an upload limit. Documents up to roughly 100 MB work comfortably on a modern laptop; very large files are best handled a few at a time, and closing the tab clears all of it instantly.
Frequently asked questions
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- Rotate PDF
Turn pages by 90 degrees or any free angle, with a live preview.
Keep your documents on your own device
Every tool here works the same way: local processing, no upload, no account. Browse the full set or read exactly how the in-browser engine works.