Make PDF Searchable
Turn scanned pages into a PDF you can search and copy from. The original page appearance is kept as an image, with a hidden text layer added behind it.
English printed text only. OCR can make mistakes, especially with handwriting, tables and low-resolution scans. Review important names and numbers before using the result.
Up to 25 MB and 25 pages. Processing may take several minutes on a phone. The language files download on first use; your PDF stays on your device.
How to use the result
- Select a clear scanned PDF and start recognition.
- Wait while the pages are processed one by one.
- Open the downloaded PDF and search for several words to check accuracy.
Example: find a date in a scanned certificate
First try searching the original file for a clearly printed word. If search finds nothing, run recognition, then search the downloaded PDF for that word and copy the line containing the date. Compare the copied line against the visible scan: OCR may confuse 0 with O, 1 with I, or omit punctuation. Do not use the copied date or name without checking the image.
For better results, start with an upright, sharp scan where small text is legible at normal zoom. A poor original cannot be made accurate by adding a search layer. This creates flattened page images with selectable English text; original forms, links and vector text are not preserved. For a PDF that already has selectable text, use PDF to Text or PDF to Word. Compare PDF editing approaches.