Make a PDF Searchable with OCR
Make a PDF searchable when its pages are scans rather than selectable text. The browser renders each page, recognizes one of 10 supported languages with Tesseract OCR, and overlays an invisible text layer on the original page image. The original PDF stays on your device. Recognition is CPU-intensive, large documents take longer, and accuracy depends on scan quality, orientation, typography, and language choice.
Choose files or drag & drop here
.pdf · single file
Processed locally in your browser — your files never leave your device.
How to ocr PDF
- Upload the scanned PDF you want to make searchable.
- Pick the document language for the best recognition accuracy.
- Click "Run OCR" — large files take longer — then download the searchable PDF.
Verified behavior and practical limits
Last tested:
How it processes your file
Each page is rendered locally, recognized with the selected Tesseract language, and rebuilt with an invisible searchable text layer over the original page image.
Verified behavior
- Supports 10 selectable OCR languages.
- Makes recognized words searchable and selectable without replacing the visible scan.
- Processes all pages in the browser.
Important limits
- Accuracy depends on scan quality, orientation, typography, and the chosen language; handwriting is not supported.
- OCR is CPU- and memory-intensive, so long documents can take substantially longer.
Reproducible example workflow
- Input
- A clean five-page English scanned PDF.
- Action
- Choose English, run OCR, then search the download for a known phrase.
- Expected output
- A visually similar PDF with a searchable text layer.
Continue the workflow
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a searchable PDF document?
Upload the scanned PDF, choose its language, and run OCR. The result keeps the original page images while adding an invisible text layer that search and copy tools can read.
Why does OCR take so long on big files?
Every page is rendered and recognized locally on your device — no server helps out. That keeps the document private, but large files or high page counts take noticeably longer.
Will the recognized text be perfect?
Accuracy depends on scan quality and language. Clean, straight, high-resolution scans in the selected language recognize best; handwriting is not supported.
Does the document look different afterwards?
No. The original page images stay untouched — the recognized words are added as an invisible text layer, so the file only gains search and copy abilities.
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