Free PDF OCR - Make Scanned PDFs Searchable Online
Extract text from scanned or image-only PDFs using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Get a searchable text layer or plain text output — right in your browser.
What is OCR PDF?
Scanned PDFs are essentially just images — the text is visual but not machine-readable. Our free PDF OCR tool uses Tesseract.js, the world's most popular open-source OCR engine (compiled to WebAssembly), to recognize text in each scanned page and produce searchable, copyable output.
Upload your scanned PDF, select the document language for best accuracy, and start OCR. Tesseract.js processes each page image locally in your browser — no server processing required. The recognized text is displayed page-by-page and can be copied or downloaded as a .txt file.
This is ideal for digitizing scanned receipts, making archived documents searchable, processing photographed whiteboard notes, or recognizing text from screenshots saved as PDFs. With Tesseract.js supporting over 100 languages, multi-lingual documents are handled naturally.
Because OCR runs on Tesseract.js in your browser via WebAssembly, documents never leave your device — even highly confidential scanned contracts, medical records, or financial statements stay private throughout the entire process.
Powerful Features
Everything you need in one amazing tool
Tesseract.js OCR Engine
Powered by the industry-leading Tesseract OCR engine compiled to WebAssembly for browser use.
100+ Languages
Recognizes text in over 100 languages. Select your language for improved accuracy.
Page-by-Page Results
Extracted text displayed per page with confidence scores for review.
Copy & Download
Copy recognized text to clipboard or download full output as a .txt file.
Browser-Only Processing
Tesseract.js runs in-browser via WebAssembly. Scanned files never leave your device.
Progress Tracking
Real-time progress bar shows OCR progress page by page for large documents.
How It Works
Get started in 4 easy steps
Upload Scanned PDF
Select your scanned or image-based PDF. pdf.js renders each page as an image.
Select Language
Choose the document language to improve OCR accuracy (default: English).
Run OCR
Click Start OCR. Tesseract.js processes each page locally via WebAssembly.
Copy or Download Text
Review extracted text per page, then copy to clipboard or download as .txt.
Why Choose Our OCR PDF?
Stand out from the competition
Scans Stay Private
Sensitive scanned documents are OCR-processed entirely in your browser. Nothing uploaded.
Multilingual OCR
Recognizes 100+ languages — ideal for global documents and multi-language files.
High Accuracy
Tesseract.js uses trained neural network models for high-quality text recognition.
No Server Required
WebAssembly-powered processing — no server load, no API calls, completely offline-capable.
Confidence Scores
Each page shows an OCR confidence percentage so you know how reliable the recognition is.
Free & Offline-Capable
Tesseract.js works offline via WebAssembly. Free to use with no account required.
Perfect For
See how others are using this tool
Scanned Documents
Make archived scanned reports, letters, and books searchable and copyable.
Scanned Receipts
Extract purchase amounts and details from photographed or scanned receipts.
Whiteboard Photos
Recognize text from whiteboard session photos saved as PDFs or images.
Data Entry Automation
Use OCR output as source text for feeding into databases or spreadsheets.
Historical Document Digitization
Digitize historical or archival scanned documents into searchable, copyable text files.
Form Data Extraction
Extract handwritten or typed text from scanned paper forms for digital record keeping.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about OCR PDF
It works best on scanned PDFs. For digital PDFs with a text layer, use our PDF to Text tool — it extracts text far more accurately than OCR for those documents.
Tesseract.js supports 100+ languages. English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and many more. Select the language before running OCR.
No. Tesseract.js runs in your browser via WebAssembly. No page image or text is sent to any external server.
Accuracy depends on scan quality, font clarity, and document language. Clean scans at 300 DPI typically yield 90–95% accuracy with Tesseract.js.
Yes. Each page is processed sequentially. A progress bar shows OCR completion progress.
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