Choose a scanned PDF and this tool reads every page with OCR (optical character recognition), then rebuilds it as a searchable PDF: the page image stays as it looks, with an invisible text layer aligned over it, so you can search, select and copy the words. Honest note: OCR accuracy depends entirely on scan quality — clean 200+ DPI scans read near-perfectly; faint, skewed or handwritten pages will have errors, and handwriting is not supported. Runs fully in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
The scan you cannot search becomes the document you can: OCR reads every page and hides a true text layer behind the familiar image.
100% free · No sign-up · No daily limits · No watermarks · Processed in your browser — files never leave your device
OCR a scanned PDF in your browser: every page is recognised with a full offline OCR engine and rebuilt with an invisible text layer, so the PDF becomes searchable and copyable while looking identical.
A 30-page scanned lease becomes findable: press search, type “deposit”, and the reader jumps to clause 9 — because the OCR layer knows where on the page those letters live (in English; other languages are not loaded).
Each page is rendered in your browser and read by the open-source Tesseract recognition engine (English model, loaded from this site — no server). Recognised words come back with their positions at character confidence; the tool rebuilds each page as its scan image plus a hidden text layer whose words sit exactly over the printed ones. Readers’ search and selection work off that layer, while your eyes see the original scan.
No — pages display as the original scan images. The recognised text is present but invisible, working quietly for search, selection and copy.
English. The engine is loaded with the English model only; other languages would need their models (several megabytes each) and are not offered here.
Recognition reads every word on every page in your browser — a 50-page scan can take minutes. Progress is shown per page; do not close the tab.
Yes for imperfect scans: a “rn” read as “m” is classic. Bake-off rule: if the source scan is poor, re-scan straighter and darker for a much better layer.
No — Tesseract runs locally in your browser from files served by this site. Your documents never leave the device.