How to Use OCR to Make a Scanned PDF Searchable
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What Is OCR?
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. When you scan a document, the scanner captures it as an image — it looks like text but the computer treats it as pixels. OCR analyses those pixels and recognises individual characters, converting the image into actual, selectable, searchable text.
When Do You Need OCR?
- Scanned contracts, receipts, or forms you need to search
- Old documents digitised from paper archives
- Images of text you want to copy and paste
- Invoices you want to process automatically
Step-by-Step: OCR a Scanned PDF
- Open the OCR PDF tool.
- Upload your scanned PDF or image-based PDF.
- Select the language of the document (improves accuracy significantly).
- Click OCR — the tool adds a text layer to your PDF.
- Download the searchable PDF.
OCR Accuracy Tips
OCR works best on clean, high-contrast scans at 300 DPI or higher. Faded ink, skewed pages, or low-resolution scans reduce accuracy. If your scan is skewed, use the Deskew tool first to straighten it before applying OCR.
After OCR: What Can You Do?
Once your PDF has a text layer, you can search with Ctrl+F, copy text, convert to Word with the PDF to Word tool, and have screen readers and accessibility tools work correctly with it.