FreePDFKit
Back to all tools
Convert / 25

OCR PDF

Make a scanned PDF searchable and copyable. Recognize the text in scanned pages and photographed documents, and add it to the PDF as an invisible layer. The pages look exactly the same, but you can now search, select and copy the text.

Never uploaded Choose the language No signup

Choose the scanned PDF

Text is recognized in your browser; the file is never uploaded.

Single file · Max 256 MB

Core processing stays in this browser after the page loads. Large files use device memory and may run slower.

OCR PDF / searchable scans

Turn a scan into a PDF you can search, select and copy from, without changing how its pages look.

Quick answer

How do I make a scanned PDF searchable?

Add the scanned PDF, choose the language it is written in, and select Make searchable. Each page is read with OCR (optical character recognition) and the recognized text is added as an invisible layer, so the pages look the same but you can search, select and copy their text. Pages that already have text are left alone. OCR runs in your browser, so the file is not uploaded; the first run downloads the language data (about 1–3 MB) once.

Privacy by default

Text recognition runs in this browser tab. Your PDF stays on your device while a searchable copy is created.

The OCR workflow

How to OCR a PDF

Pick the language, run, download

  1. 01

    Add your scanned PDF

    Choose a scan, a photographed document or any image-only PDF.

  2. 02

    Choose the document language

    Pick the language the text is written in.

  3. 03

    Download the searchable PDF

    Select Make searchable, wait for the pages to be read, and save the copy.

Why OCR here

Searchable scans, unchanged pages

OCR in 14 languages

01

Pages stay exactly the same

The text is added as an invisible layer on top of each page, so the scan keeps its look and quality.

02

Search, select and copy

Find words with your PDF reader's search, select passages and copy them into other documents.

03

14 languages

Including English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Arabic.

04

Leaves real text alone

Pages that already have selectable text are skipped, so mixed documents are handled sensibly.

05

Works locally after the page loads

Recognition runs in your browser tab; neither the PDF nor its text is sent to a server.

06

No account required

Open the tool and use it without registration or a subscription.

Accuracy, languages and privacy

OCR PDF FAQs

Accuracy, languages and privacy

What does OCR do to a PDF?

OCR (optical character recognition) reads the text in the page images and adds it to the PDF as an invisible layer. The pages look the same, but you can search, select and copy the text.

How accurate is it?

Clean scans of printed text at normal size are usually recognized very well. Handwriting, low-resolution photos, unusual fonts and busy backgrounds lower the accuracy, so check important passages.

Which languages are supported?

English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Indonesian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. Choose the language the document is written in.

Why is it slower than other tools?

Every page is read by an OCR engine running on your device instead of a server. That keeps the document private, but takes a few seconds per page.

Can I get the text as a .txt file?

Yes. Make the PDF searchable here, then extract its text with PDF to Text.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. The OCR engine and the language data are downloaded to your browser, and the document is read in your browser tab. It never leaves your device.

Learn before you process

PDF guides for this workflow

Get the answer, understand the trade-offs, then use the focused tool when you are ready.

How to convert PDF to Word and keep the formatting

Visual pages or editable text: what each mode keeps, what changes in Word, and how to handle scans and tables.

Read the conversion guide

How to convert images to PDF (JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, GIF)

Combine photos, scans or screenshots into one PDF in the order you choose, pick the page size, and avoid sideways photos and oversized files.

Read the images-to-PDF guide

Comparing PDF tools? FreePDFKit vs iLovePDF · FreePDFKit vs Smallpdf · Browser-local PDF processing vs cloud upload

Related PDF tools

Verify it yourself

Your file is not uploaded. Here is how to check.

The core tools run inside your browser tab, so a document you open here is not sent to FreePDFKit or to anyone else. You can confirm that in about a minute.

  1. Step 1

    Open the tool and let it load

    Wait until the page has finished loading.

  2. Step 2

    Open your browser’s developer tools

    Press F12 (or Cmd+Option+I on a Mac) and switch to the Network tab.

  3. Step 3

    Run the tool on a test file

    Choose a non-sensitive file of the type the tool accepts and process it as usual.

  4. Step 4

    Look for a request that carries the file

    You will not find one. The page loads its own scripts, then the work happens in your browser.

What backs this up

  • Open-source libraries in the page. PDF handling uses libraries such as pdf-lib and Mozilla’s PDF.js, which run in your browser.
  • No PDF endpoint on the server. The only server routes are the contact form and the social-preview image generator.
  • A restrictive security policy. The site’s Content-Security-Policy limits the fetch and XHR connections page scripts can make to our own origin and Cloudflare’s anti-spam check, plus Google Analytics, which receives page views only.

Step-by-step checks, including an offline test, in how to check if a PDF tool uploads your file. More detail in the privacy policy and how this compares with other no-upload options.