Make a PDF Searchable (OCR)
Scanned PDFs are just pictures: you can't search or select their text. This tool runs OCR in your browser and adds an invisible text layer on top, so the document becomes searchable while looking exactly the same.
Scanned documents are often the most sensitive ones (IDs, contracts, medical records). This OCR runs entirely on your device; the file is never uploaded anywhere.
Drag your scanned PDF here
or choose from your computer
Preparing…
How it works
- Each scanned page is rendered and OCR'd with Tesseract.js, then every recognized word is placed at its exact position as invisible text with pdf-lib. The visible page is byte-for-byte the original.
- Search, select, copy: after processing, Ctrl/Cmd+F and text selection work in any PDF reader, because the text layer is real PDF text.
- Limitations: recognition quality depends on scan quality; low-confidence words are skipped. Rotated pages and non-Latin scripts placed via the built-in fonts aren't supported yet.
Frequently asked questions
What does "searchable PDF" actually mean?
An invisible text layer is placed over the scanned image at the exact position of each recognized line. The page looks identical, but you can now select, copy, and Ctrl/Cmd+F search the text in any PDF reader.
Which languages does the OCR support?
Fourteen, including English, Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic, and you can select several at once for mixed-language documents.
Will it change how my PDF looks?
No. The visible page image is left untouched; only the invisible text layer is added on top.