At a glance
- Accepts
- One PDF file, scanned or partly scanned
- Outputs
- The same PDF with a selectable, searchable text layer on its scanned pages, plus the text as .txt
- Where it runs
- Entirely in your browser, on your device
- What leaves your device
- Nothing - the file never leaves your device
- Limits
- No size or count cap; bounded by your device's memory; engine (about 1.4 MB) and each language (0.7-3 MB) download from the jsDelivr CDN on first use; printed text works best, handwriting poorly; pages that already have text are skipped
- Account
- Not required - there is no sign-up
- Price
- Free, with no watermark and no usage cap
- Made by
- Visrut
- Last updated
- 12 October 2026
A scanned PDF is just pictures of pages: you can't search it, select a sentence or copy a number out of it. This tool reads each scanned page with Tesseract OCR and adds an invisible text layer on top, lined up with the words, so the PDF becomes searchable and selectable while looking exactly the same. Pages that already have text are left alone. Everything runs in your browser - the PDF is never uploaded.
How to use it
- Pick the language the document is written in. Each language downloads once, the first time you use it.
- Drop the scanned PDF. The tool tells you which pages are scans and which already have text.
- Press "Make PDF searchable" and wait while each page is read. You can cancel at any time.
- Download the searchable PDF, or just the text as a .txt file.
What to expect
- Clean scans of printed text work well. Faint, blurry, skewed or low-resolution scans produce more mistakes.
- Handwriting is mostly not recognised - Tesseract is built for printed type.
- The text layer follows the words but not the layout: tables and columns become plain lines of words when you copy them.
- Long PDFs take time, roughly page count times a few seconds on a laptop and longer on a phone. Keep the tab open until it finishes.
Related PDF tools
Once the text is searchable you can redact names and numbers from it, compress a large scan, or pull a table into a spreadsheet with PDF to CSV. For a single photo or screenshot rather than a PDF, use Image to Text.
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The pages are rendered and read by Tesseract running in your browser tab, and the new PDF is assembled in your browser too. The only downloads are the OCR engine (about 1.4 MB) and the language you pick (0.7 to 3 MB), fetched from the jsDelivr CDN the first time and cached afterwards. Your PDF never leaves your device.
Does it change how my PDF looks?
No. The original pages are kept exactly as they were - nothing is re-rendered, recompressed or flattened. An invisible text layer is added on top of each scanned page, lined up with the words in the image. You can see it only when you select or search text. The file grows by a few kilobytes per page for the text.
How accurate is it?
On clean, straight scans of printed text, Tesseract gets most words right, but it is not perfect: expect some misread characters, especially in small print, unusual fonts, tables and faint or skewed scans. The tool shows Tesseract's own confidence and tells you when many words were uncertain. Handwriting is mostly not recognised. Check the text before relying on it, for example by downloading the .txt.
Which languages can it read?
English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, simplified Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Pick the language the document is written in - each is a separate download of 0.7 to 3 MB, fetched only when you use it. Reading a document with the wrong language model produces mostly nonsense.
What happens to pages that already have text?
They are left exactly as they are and not read again, and the tool lists them. A page counts as already having text when it contains at least 20 characters of real (selectable) text. If every page has text, the PDF is already searchable and there is nothing to do.
How long does it take?
Each page is rendered at 300 DPI and read separately, so time grows with the page count. A laptop typically takes a few seconds per page; phones and older computers are slower. The tool shows an estimate once the first page is done. You can switch to another tab while it works, but keep this one open.
Is there a page limit?
No fixed limit - your device's memory and patience are the limit. Pages are processed one at a time, so long PDFs work on a computer. On a phone, very long PDFs (hundreds of pages) can take a long time or run out of memory; split them first if that happens.
Can I get just the text?
Yes. After reading, "Download text (.txt)" saves all the text in page order, with a header per page. Pages that already had text contribute their existing text.