Recognize supported printed text
OCR analyzes scanned page images and attempts to identify printed English characters with the recognition model included in the tool.
OCR PDF Online
Run optical character recognition on supported scanned or image-based PDF pages to make recognized text searchable. OCR results depend on language support, scan quality, resolution, rotation, and document layout.
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Up to 50 MiB per PDFView limits & supported files
- Supported input
- Select a PDF
- Limits
- Up to 50 MiB per PDF
- Additional limits
- English OCR · up to 25 pages
- Processing
- No file upload
- File handling
- Files remain in your browser
Browser processing
No account required
Direct download
Make supported scanned PDF text searchable
Use OCR PDF when a PDF looks like text but behaves like an image. Recognition adds a searchable text layer only where the OCR engine can identify the printed content.
Keep the scanned page appearance
The tool rebuilds each visible page as a JPEG image and adds recognized English text for search and selection.
Review OCR instead of assuming accuracy
Names, numbers, tables, handwriting, faint scans, unusual fonts, and skewed pages can be misread. Important text should be checked manually.
Turn image-only scans into searchable PDFs where recognition succeeds
OCR PDF is useful when a scan contains printed text but no selectable text layer. It does not guarantee perfect recognition or recreate every layout as editable document content.
Useful for
- Search printed text inside supported scanned documents.
- Copy recognized text where the OCR result is accurate enough.
- Prepare a scanned PDF for workflows that benefit from searchable text.
Good to know
- The OCR engine currently recognizes English only.
- The current workflow is intended for printed text, not handwriting.
- OCR accuracy depends heavily on scan quality, orientation, contrast, and typography.
How to Make a Scanned PDF Searchable
Choose the scanned PDF, process the pages, then download and open the result to verify the recognized text before relying on it.
- Choose a supported scanned or image-based PDF.
- Start OCR processing.
- Download the OCR-processed PDF.
- Open the downloaded PDF and test important names, numbers, or terms.
Related PDF tools
Browser processing questions
What is OCR?
Optical character recognition analyzes page images and attempts to identify characters so recognized text can become searchable or extractable.
Which languages does PDFKaka OCR support?
PDFKaka OCR currently supports English printed text.
Can OCR read handwriting?
The current OCR workflow is intended for printed English text, not handwriting.
Will OCR be completely accurate?
No. Accuracy depends on scan quality, resolution, rotation, language, fonts, layout, and the content itself. Review important text manually.
Does OCR change the visible scan?
OCR rebuilds each page as a JPEG image and adds a searchable text layer. The original page image bytes are not preserved unchanged.
Are my files uploaded to PDFKaka?
No. Selected PDF contents are processed locally in this browser; OCR assets are loaded from PDFKaka only when recognition starts.
Practical PDF guides for complete tasks
OCR PDF guide
How to make a scanned PDF searchable with OCR
Recognize supported printed English text on image-only pages and add a searchable text layer to a new PDF.
Read guide →
OCR PDF guide
Why OCR misses words, names, or numbers in a PDF
PDFKaka OCR is a best-effort workflow for printed English on up to 25 scanned pages.
Read guide →
OCR PDF guide
How to run OCR on a multipage PDF
Process a supported multipage scan within the displayed page and device-memory limits, then review more than the first page.
Read guide →
View all PDFKaka Guides →