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Make a scanned PDF searchable

Run optical character recognition on scanned PDFs and download a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer — select, copy, and find text while keeping the original look.

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How to use OCR PDF

  1. 1

    Drop the scanned PDF.

  2. 2

    Pick the document language.

  3. 3

    Optionally also download recognised text as .txt.

  4. 4

    Run OCR, then download the searchable PDF.

Formats, limits and privacy

  • Input: one PDF (usually a scan). Output: searchable PDF; optional plain .txt.
  • Up to 200 MB. Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. The file is processed in your browser and isn't uploaded to WordToPDFHub.

Good to know

  • Only the listed languages are supported — not universal language coverage.
  • Blurry or low-resolution scans produce poor text; OCR does not repair image quality.
  • Handwriting and decorative fonts are unreliable.
  • Accuracy is not guaranteed; always spot-check important pages.

Questions

Does OCR upload my file?
No. Recognition runs in your browser with Tesseract.
What if I need an editable Word file?
Run OCR first so the PDF has selectable text, then use PDF to Word.