Turn scanned documents into editable, searchable text using OCR. Works with scanned PDFs and photo documents.
Every scanned document contains text that's locked inside an image. OCR unlocks it. The technology analyzes the visual patterns of characters in the scan and converts them into actual text data that you can search, copy, edit, and use.
This tool applies OCR to your scanned PDF and gives you back the text — as a searchable PDF, plain text, or Word document.
Convert scanned PDFs into searchable and editable documents.
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Maximum file size: 20MB (OCR limit)
Scanned documents are images — the text you see is just pixels arranged to look like characters. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) analyzes those pixel patterns, identifies which characters they represent, and creates actual text data. The conversion involves image preprocessing (correcting skew and contrast), character segmentation (identifying individual characters), recognition (matching patterns to characters), and text assembly (putting characters into words and paragraphs in reading order).
Use cases include:
Converting scanned historical documents into searchable digital text.
Processing scanned legal documents for text search and extraction.
Converting scanned academic papers into editable text for research.
Processing scanned business correspondence for archiving and search.
Converting scanned forms into text data for database entry.
Scanned documents become searchable, editable, and usable in seconds.
Upload the scan, get the text.
Upload your scanned PDF. Better scan quality produces more accurate text.
Select the document language for improved recognition accuracy.
Download the text output — searchable PDF, plain text, or Word format.
Upload the scan, select language, download the text.
Scanned page images are preprocessed: deskewing corrects rotation, denoising removes scan artifacts, and contrast enhancement improves character visibility.
The preprocessed images are analyzed by the OCR engine. Character segmentation identifies individual characters, and recognition matches them to character models.
Recognized text is assembled in reading order and written to the selected output format.
OCR accuracy depends on several factors in the source scan.
Resolution: 300 DPI is the standard for good OCR accuracy. Below 200 DPI, character recognition becomes unreliable.
Alignment: text that's rotated or skewed reduces accuracy. Modern OCR engines include deskewing, but severe rotation still impacts results.
Contrast: high contrast between text and background improves accuracy. Low contrast (light text on light background) reduces it.
Font: standard printed fonts achieve near-perfect accuracy. Decorative, handwritten, or unusual fonts reduce accuracy significantly.
Manual retyping is the only alternative to OCR for scanned documents. OCR is faster and more accurate.
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OCR converts what your eyes can read into what your computer can process.
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Find answers to common questions about our PDF tools
Upload the scanned PDF, select the language, and the OCR engine analyzes the page images and converts the visual text into machine-readable text. Download the result as a searchable PDF, plain text file, or Word document.
Significantly. A clean, well-lit scan at 300 DPI with straight alignment produces 95–99% accuracy. A blurry, skewed, or low-resolution scan may produce 70–80% accuracy or worse. Scan quality is the primary factor in OCR accuracy.
Yes. If you've taken a photo of a document and converted it to PDF, OCR can process it. Photo quality varies more than scanner quality, so accuracy may be lower — but for clear, well-lit photos, results are typically good.
Basic paragraph structure is preserved. Complex formatting like multi-column layouts, tables, and text boxes may not convert perfectly. The text content is accurate, but the layout may need manual adjustment.
There's no hard page limit. Processing time scales with page count — a 100-page scanned document may take several minutes to process.
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