Why is OCR slower than the other tools?

Character recognition is genuinely heavy computation, and it runs on your own device rather than a server farm. Budget a few seconds per page. The upside is that sensitive scans — contracts, IDs, medical records — never leave your machine.

On a clean 300 DPI scan of printed text, accuracy is very high. Faint photocopies, skewed pages, unusual typefaces, and handwriting are all much harder. Scanning straight and at a decent resolution makes more difference than any setting here.

Is OCR PDF really free?

Yes — every tool on PDF Love is free, with no account, no email, no trial period, and no watermark stamped on your output. There is no file-count limit and no daily quota.

What happens to my files?

They never leave your device. This tool runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly, so your file is read from local memory, processed locally, and handed straight back. Nothing is uploaded, which is why it still works with your Wi-Fi switched off.

Is there a file size limit?

There is no limit imposed by us. Because the work happens on your own device, the practical ceiling is your available memory — comfortably a few hundred megabytes on a normal laptop or phone.

Does it work on a phone or tablet?

Yes. The site is built mobile-first and works in any modern browser on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. There is nothing to install.

OCR PDF — Make Scans Searchable

Recognise text in scanned pages so you can search and copy it.

Choose PDF, JPG, PNG files

or drag and drop them here

Processed on your device · nothing is uploaded

Runs entirely in your browser
No upload wait
Free and unlimited

About OCR PDF

A scanned page is just a photograph, so searching it finds nothing and selecting text is impossible. Optical character recognition reads the characters and adds an invisible text layer behind the image, leaving the page looking identical but making it fully searchable.

How to OCR PDF

1
Drop your PDF, JPG, PNG files onto the box above, or click to browse for them.
2
Adjust the settings if the defaults are not what you need.
3
Press OCR PDF. The work happens on your device, so the time it takes depends on your machine rather than a queue.
4
Download the result. Nothing is stored, so grab it before you close the tab.

Questions about OCR PDF

Why is OCR slower than the other tools?: Character recognition is genuinely heavy computation, and it runs on your own device rather than a server farm. Budget a few seconds per page. The upside is that sensitive scans — contracts, IDs, medical records — never leave your machine.
How accurate is it?: On a clean 300 DPI scan of printed text, accuracy is very high. Faint photocopies, skewed pages, unusual typefaces, and handwriting are all much harder. Scanning straight and at a decent resolution makes more difference than any setting here.
Is OCR PDF really free?: Yes — every tool on PDF Love is free, with no account, no email, no trial period, and no watermark stamped on your output. There is no file-count limit and no daily quota.
What happens to my files?: They never leave your device. This tool runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly, so your file is read from local memory, processed locally, and handed straight back. Nothing is uploaded, which is why it still works with your Wi-Fi switched off.
Is there a file size limit?: There is no limit imposed by us. Because the work happens on your own device, the practical ceiling is your available memory — comfortably a few hundred megabytes on a normal laptop or phone.
Does it work on a phone or tablet?: Yes. The site is built mobile-first and works in any modern browser on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. There is nothing to install.

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