How to make a scanned PDF searchable

Scans are just pictures of text. OCR reads them and adds real text, so you can search and copy.

Steps

Add your scan
Drag a scanned PDF or a photo of a document (JPG or PNG) onto the box, or click Choose a file.
Choose the language
Under Document language, pick the language it's written in. Choose up to three if it mixes languages.
Keep digital pages as they are
Leave Skip pages that already have text on. It's faster and leaves normal pages untouched.
Click Make searchable
Small scans take about 20 seconds; long documents a few minutes. The language data downloads once, then works offline.
Download the result
Click Download to save the searchable PDF. The original file is left exactly as it was.

Straight, well lit scans give the best results.
The page looks the same afterwards. The text is added invisibly behind the image, ready to search and copy.

Which languages are supported?: English, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese.
Is my scan sent to an OCR server?: No. Text recognition runs in your browser, so the document never leaves your device.

Ready? OCR PDF is free.

Make scans searchable. Works in your browser, no sign up.