OCR PDF — Extract Text from Scanned Pages

Use optical character recognition to recover text from scanned PDF documents. Export recognized content as plain text, a searchable PDF, or a Word document. Supports English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

Why use this page?

  • Extract text from scanned documents and images
  • Supports 6 languages: EN, FR, DE, ES, IT, PT
  • Works with any scan quality (300+ DPI recommended)
  • Choose plain text, searchable PDF, or Word output
  • No signup or software installation needed

When this tool is the right choice

  • Recover copyable text from a scanned contract, letter, receipt, or historical document.
  • Make a scan searchable before archiving it or converting it to Word.
  • Extract text for quoting, translation, accessibility, or data entry.
  • Process printed pages in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese.

What to expect

  • OCR accuracy depends on resolution, contrast, page rotation, font clarity, and the selected language.
  • Handwriting, decorative fonts, tables, and multi-column layouts require careful review.
  • Recognized text should be proofread before legal, medical, financial, or compliance use.

File handling: OCR processing is used only to analyze the selected document for this task; do not treat automated recognition as a certified transcription.

How it works

  1. Upload a scanned PDF.
  2. Select the document language and output format.
  3. Click Process to run OCR on all or selected pages.
  4. Download the text, searchable PDF, or Word result and proofread it.

Frequently asked questions

How accurate is the OCR?

Accuracy depends on scan quality. Clear, high-resolution scans at 300+ DPI produce the best results.

Which languages are supported?

English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are currently supported.

Can OCR read handwriting?

OCR works best on printed text. Very clear handwriting may be partially recognized, but results vary — for reliable output, use printed documents.

Will OCR change how my scanned document looks?

When you choose searchable PDF, the original page image is retained and recognized text is added as a searchable layer. Plain-text and Word outputs focus on the recognized content instead.

What can I do with the text after OCR?

Search it, copy and paste it anywhere, or convert the searchable PDF to Word or plain text with our other tools for full editing.