Make a scanned PDF searchable
A scanned PDF is just pictures of pages — you can't search it, and you can't copy from it. This tool runs OCR over every page and embeds the recognised text as an invisible layer underneath the original image. The pages look exactly the same; the difference is that Ctrl+F suddenly works, text can be selected and copied, and the file becomes indexable.
Because the original page images are kept untouched, this is the safest OCR output there is: nothing is re-typeset, nothing can shift — it's your exact document, made searchable.
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Upload a scanned PDF (or an image — it becomes a one-page searchable PDF).
- 2
OCR runs page by page and the text layer is stamped invisibly under each page.
- 3
Download a pixel-identical PDF that you can search and copy from.
Born-digital PDFs (ones that already contain text) pass through untouched rather than being double-OCR'd — the tool only adds text where there is none.
In our fidelity suite the searchable-PDF path measures a 0.000 character error rate on clean scans; low-quality scans will have imperfect hidden text, but the visible pages are always unchanged.
Searchable PDF (OCR) — questions
Will the PDF look different afterwards?
No. The visible pages are byte-for-byte your original images; only an invisible text layer is added.
What's the difference from PDF to Word?
PDF to Word rebuilds an editable document. OCR keeps the PDF exactly as it looks and just makes it searchable. Use Word for editing, OCR for archiving.
Can I OCR a photo?
Yes — upload a JPG/PNG and you'll get back a searchable single-page PDF.