Scanned PDF · Local OCR
Scanned PDF to text, without the upload.
Turn an image-only PDF into editable, searchable text. The converter renders each page with PDF.js and runs Tesseract.js OCR in your browser, so the document stays on your device.
Open the scanned PDF here.
Drag in the file, choose its language, and run OCR. Nothing is uploaded and no account is required.
Local Sandbox Workspace
Supports PDF, PNG, JPEG, or WEBP
filename.pdf
0.0 MB
Preparing optical parser modules…
How it works
From image pages to editable text.
Open the PDF
Drop the scanned PDF into the converter. PDF.js renders each page inside your browser without sending the file anywhere.
Choose the language
Select the language the document is written in. The matching Tesseract model is downloaded and cached for later runs.
Run OCR and export
Start OCR, check the text against the page preview, then copy it or download it as a .txt or .doc file.
Why it happens
A scanned PDF has no text layer.
When a paper document is scanned, the scanner records an image of the page. The PDF wraps that image in a document container, but it does not know which pixels are letters. That is why selecting text, searching with Ctrl+F, or copying a paragraph returns nothing.
OCR, or optical character recognition, analyses the shapes in the image and maps them to characters. This tool renders each PDF page to a canvas and passes it to Tesseract.js, an OCR engine compiled to WebAssembly. The recognised text is then placed in an editable workspace beside the page preview.
A PDF that already contains a text layer does not need OCR for copying. You can usually select and copy the text directly. OCR is for the scanned, photographed or image-only documents where that fails.
Get a cleaner result
- Scan at 300 DPI or higher when you control the source.
- Keep pages straight, and crop dark borders before scanning if possible.
- Use a high-contrast scan: dark text on a light background.
- Match the OCR language to the document, including regional variants.
- Review names, numbers and codes against the page preview before exporting.
Scanned PDF questions.
More free tools
Private, browser-based tools that run on your device.
Ready to read the scanned PDF?
Open the file, run OCR, and copy the text. The document never leaves your browser.
Convert the PDF