OCR PDF
Add a searchable text layer to a scanned PDF, in your browser — Hindi included.
OCR runs in your browser (Tesseract, WebAssembly). The OCR engine, language model and — for Hindi — a Devanagari font are all fetched once and cached; your PDF itself is never uploaded. Covers the first 20 pages.
- Free — no signup, no account, no watermark
- Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded to a server
- Works on mobile, tablet and desktop
- Instant — results appear as soon as you enter your input
Why this is private
- OCR runs in your browser (Tesseract, WebAssembly). The OCR engine, language model and — for Hindi — a Devanagari font are all fetched once and cached; your PDF itself is never uploaded. Covers the first 20 pages.
- Open your browser's DevTools → Network tab while using this tool — you won't see a request carrying your input, because it never leaves your device.
- Nothing you enter is uploaded to a server or shared with us — the processing happens entirely on your device.
Overview
Reads the text in a scanned PDF with optical character recognition and lays an invisible, selectable text layer over each page, so you can search and copy from it while the original scan still shows. The page images are untouched. Recognition happens locally in your browser — the engine downloads its language model from a CDN on first run, but the document never leaves your device. Accuracy tracks scan quality and is never 100%.
How to use it
- 1Drop in a scanned PDF (up to 20 pages).
- 2Pick the document's language.
- 3Click Make searchable, wait for each page, then download.
Frequently asked questions
What people use it for
Search a scanned contract or manualAdd a text layer so Ctrl+F actually finds clauses, part numbers or names in a document that was only ever scanned.
Copy text out of a scanned pageSelect and paste from a scan instead of retyping an address, quote or reference by hand.
Make a Hindi scan searchableThe invisible text layer fully supports Devanagari script, not just Latin-script languages — search and copy real Hindi text, not garbled or missing characters.
Make an archive of scans findableRun receipts, letters or old records through OCR so a folder of PDFs becomes full-text searchable.
Prepare a scan for PDF to WordThe text extractor needs a text layer — add one here first, then convert.
Related guides
- How to convert images to PDF (JPG, PNG, phone photos)Turn one or several JPG or PNG images into a single PDF, in the right page order — what the tool does, the steps, and the common snags.
- How to merge PDF files into oneCombine two or more PDFs into a single file, in the order you choose — the steps, what merging does to quality and size, and how to handle pages and images.
- How to compress a PDF to under 1 MBA 1 MB upload limit is common on application portals. Here's what's realistic, how to get there, and when 1 MB simply isn't possible without losing the text.
- How to compress a PDF for email attachmentsGmail, Outlook and most providers cap attachments around 20–25 MB. Here's how to get a PDF under the limit — or send it without shrinking it at all.
Related tools
All pdf toolsPDF to TextExtract selectable text from a PDF, with reading-order-aware, column-aware extraction.PDF to WordExtract a PDF's text and paragraphs into an editable Word (DOCX) file.Compress PDFReduce PDF file size — rasterize pages, or recompress images while keeping text selectable.Merge PDFCombine multiple PDF files into a single document.
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OCR PDF