OCR PDF
Make scanned PDFs searchable by extracting text with OCR technology.
Coming Soon
OCR PDF requires server-side processing. We're working on bringing this tool online. Check back soon!
How It Works
Upload your scanned PDF
Drag and drop your scanned PDF or image-based document, or click to browse.
Select language and mode
Choose the document language for best accuracy and whether to create a searchable PDF or extract text only.
Download your result
Your searchable PDF or extracted text is ready. Search, copy, and paste text from previously unsearchable documents.
Why Use FreePDFApp?
- ✓Converts scanned, image-only PDFs into searchable text
- ✓Supports 25+ languages for global document processing
- ✓Creates a text layer while preserving original images
- ✓Copy, paste, and search text after OCR processing
- ✓Works on photos of documents taken with a phone
Frequently Asked Questions
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is technology that reads text from images. It converts scanned documents and photos into machine-readable, searchable text.
OCR works best on printed text. Handwriting recognition accuracy is lower and depends on legibility. Clean, printed documents produce the best results.
Over 25 languages are supported including English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and many more.
Yes — in "Make PDF searchable" mode, the original images remain unchanged. An invisible text layer is added on top so you can search and copy text.
Yes — if you have a photo of a document saved as a PDF, OCR can extract the text from it. For best results, ensure the photo is well-lit and the text is clearly visible.
Related PDF Tools
Summarize PDF
Get an AI-generated summary of any PDF document in seconds.
PDF to Word
Convert your PDF to an editable Word document (.docx) without losing formatting.
Chat with PDF
Ask questions about your PDF and get instant AI-powered answers.
Compress PDF
Reduce your PDF file size without losing quality.