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Make a Scanned PDF Searchable with OCR

Read the printed text on scanned pages online and get a searchable PDF that looks exactly like the original. You can also copy the text or download it as a .txt file.

Extract Text with OCR

Upload a PDF and extract plain text with OCR

How to OCR a scanned PDF

  1. 1

    Add your scanned PDF

    Open the OCR editor and choose one PDF. It works page by page on scans and other PDF pages that do not already contain useful text.

  2. 2

    Run text recognition

    Choose a language and start recognition. The browser renders each page as an image and Tesseract reads the visible characters.

  3. 3

    Download a searchable PDF or the text

    Download the searchable PDF, which keeps your pages as they are with the text hidden behind them, or copy the text or download it as a .txt file.

What this PDF OCR tool actually produces

The editor renders each PDF page, sends the page image to Tesseract OCR, and gets back the words it recognised and where each one sits on the page.

The searchable PDF keeps every original page exactly as it was and adds those words as an invisible text layer in the same places. The pages look the same, but you can now search the file, select a sentence and copy it. This is the same kind of file a scanner's "searchable PDF" setting makes.

The text file is the plain recognised text, with separators such as "--- Page 1 ---" so it can be matched back to the source. It does not keep tables, columns or spacing.

Recognition depends on the source page and the selected language. Clear, upright printed text generally works best; blur, skew, shadows, handwriting, unusual fonts, and mixed languages can produce mistakes. Always check names, numbers, and important clauses against the scan.

Languages, limits, and what to check

The editor offers English, Spanish, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian. Select the language that matches most of the page before starting OCR.

OCR processes every page in the PDF and can take longer as page count and image size increase. It is intended for text extraction, not handwritten-text transcription, layout-preserving conversion, or a guaranteed word-for-word result.

Compare the text with the original before using it in a contract, application, record, or other important document. The hidden text in the searchable PDF is exactly what was recognised, so a misread number will be found under its misread value when you search.

From the blog

Your files are never retained by PilotPDF

PilotPDF does not keep copies of your original files, completed files, passwords, or document contents after processing.

Read our privacy policy for details about analytics and data handling.

Related tools

Image to Text

OCR for single photos and screenshots.

PDF to Text

Extract text from PDFs that already have a text layer.

Compress PDF

Scans are large; shrink the searchable PDF after OCR.

Camera to PDF

Capture documents with your camera first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Download Searchable PDF gives you your original pages, unchanged, with the recognised text hidden behind them. You can then search the file, select words and copy them in any PDF reader.
No. The original pages are kept exactly as they were, including their image quality. Only an invisible text layer is added, so the file grows a little.
The recognised text on its own, as extracted-pdf-text.txt, with page separators so you can tell where each page's text came from. You can also copy it to the clipboard.
English, Spanish, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian are available in the language menu.
No. The text file is plain text, so columns, tables and spacing may not be preserved. The searchable PDF keeps the layout because it keeps the original pages.
It is intended mainly for printed text. Handwriting, unusual fonts, blur, shadows, and skewed pages can lead to poor results.
There is no fixed accuracy promise. Clear, upright pages usually produce better text than low-quality scans, so check important names, numbers, and wording against the PDF.
In the text file, yes: copy or download it and edit it anywhere. The hidden text in the searchable PDF is exactly what was recognised, so a misread word will be searchable as it was read.
Yes. The editor runs recognition across all pages in the selected PDF.
Yes. PilotPDF does not retain your PDF, recognised text, or completed file.