# Make Scanned PDFs Searchable with OCR

> Run OCR on scanned PDFs. Make them text-searchable, or extract plain text. Supports 11 languages.

Live tool: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools/ocr-pdf

Category: PDF & Documents

## How it works

1. **Select scanned PDF** — Drop or browse a scanned/image PDF up to 50 MB.
2. **Pick language and output** — Choose the document's language. Pick "Searchable PDF" to keep the original look with a hidden text layer, or "Plain text" for a .txt download.
3. **Run OCR** — Recognition runs entirely in your browser via Tesseract.js. First run downloads a ~10 MB language pack.

## FAQ

### How is this different from Extract PDF Text?

Extract PDF Text only works on digital PDFs that already have a text layer (created from Word, Pages, etc.). OCR PDF works on scanned/image PDFs that are just pixels — it recognizes text from the page images.

### Does my file get uploaded?

No. Tesseract.js runs entirely in your browser. The PDF and the recognized text never leave your device.

### How long does it take?

Roughly 5-15 seconds per page on a modern laptop. Larger or busier pages take longer. The first page after picking a language is slower because the language pack downloads on first run.

### Why are some words wrong?

OCR accuracy depends on scan quality, contrast, language, and font. Cleaner scans + the right language pack give the best results. Low-confidence words are filtered out of the searchable layer.

## Privacy

This tool runs entirely in the browser. Files are not uploaded to a server. They never leave the user's device.

## More

- All tools: https://lofttools.com/tools
- Category: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools
- LLM index: https://lofttools.com/llms.txt