OCR Explained: Turn Scanned PDFs and Images into Editable Text
Ever tried to copy text from a scanned document and got… nothing? That's because a scan is just a picture of text. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that reads those pictures and turns them back into real, selectable text.
When do you need OCR?
- You scanned a paper document and want to edit it.
- A PDF's text can't be selected or searched.
- You have a screenshot or photo containing text you want to copy.
Extract text from an image
Image OCR reads text from JPG and PNG images — screenshots, photos of signs, receipts and more. Pick your language and get editable text you can copy or download.
Extract text from a scanned PDF
PDF OCR runs recognition on every page of an image-based PDF. If you're not sure whether a PDF has a text layer, Extract Text reads it directly when possible and falls back to OCR automatically.
Make a scanned PDF searchable
The best of both worlds: Searchable PDF keeps your scan looking exactly the same but adds an invisible text layer on top, so you can search and copy from it like a normal PDF.
Pull tables out of documents
Need the numbers, not the prose? Extract Tables detects tabular data and exports it to CSV or Excel.
A note on accuracy and privacy
OCR is excellent on clear, printed text and struggles with messy handwriting or low-contrast images. Everything runs in your browser — the recognition engine downloads once, but your images and PDFs are never uploaded.