PDF OCR Converter
Extract searchable and editable text from scanned PDFs or images.
Note: OCR accuracy depends heavily on the quality of your PDF (clear scans work best). Processing can take time for large files.
Upload Your PDF File
Drag & drop your PDF here or click to browse (.pdf)
Initializing OCR…
Please be patient. OCR is a resource-intensive process, especially for multi-page PDFs.
OCR Complete!
Extracted text from your PDF:
Recognized Text:
What is PDF OCR and Why is it Useful?
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is technology that enables you to convert different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents, PDF files, or images captured by a digital camera, into editable and searchable data.
Why Use OCR for PDFs?
Many PDFs, especially those created from scanned documents, are essentially just images of text, not actual searchable text. This means you can’t select, copy, or search for text within them. OCR solves this problem:
- Searchability: Make your scanned documents fully searchable.
- Editability: Convert scanned text into editable text in word processors.
- Accessibility: Enable screen readers and other assistive technologies to read the document.
- Data Extraction: Easily copy and paste information, or use tools to extract data.
- Indexing: Prepare documents for content management systems.
How Our Client-Side PDF OCR Works (Powered by Tesseract.js):
This tool utilizes `pdf.js` to render your PDF pages and `Tesseract.js` for the OCR process, all within your web browser. This ensures maximum privacy, as your files never leave your device.
- PDF Upload & Rendering: You upload your PDF. `pdf.js` then converts each page of the PDF into a high-resolution image on a hidden canvas.
- OCR Processing: Each image is then fed to the `Tesseract.js` library. Tesseract analyzes the image, identifies characters, and reconstructs the text. You can select the language to improve accuracy.
- Text Output & Download: The extracted text from all pages is combined and displayed. You can then copy it or download it as a plain text file.
Key Benefits and Considerations:
Privacy Guaranteed
All OCR processing happens directly in your browser. Your sensitive documents are never uploaded to our servers.
Multi-Language Support
Choose from various OCR languages to get the best possible text recognition for your document.
Client-Side Operation
No waiting for server queues. Process your PDFs quickly and efficiently based on your local machine’s power.
Editable Text Output
Get the extracted text as a downloadable file, ready for editing or further use.
Important Notes & Limitations:
Accuracy: OCR accuracy is highly dependent on the quality of the original PDF. Clear, well-scanned documents will yield better results than blurry, skewed, or low-resolution scans. Handwritten text is generally not supported.
Performance: OCR is CPU and memory intensive. Processing very large PDFs (many pages or high DPI) can take a significant amount of time and might temporarily make your browser unresponsive. Ensure you have a stable internet connection for initial language data downloads.
Layout Preservation: This tool primarily extracts text. It does not attempt to reconstruct complex document layouts (e.g., tables, columns, specific formatting) in the output text. The output will be raw, linear text.
For best results, use clean, high-resolution scans of documents with clear, machine-printed text.