Free tool · Windows and macOS
Make a scan searchable.
OCR reads the text in a scanned PDF and adds a hidden text layer, so you can search it, select it and copy it.
How to OCR a PDF with Paperwing
- Open Paperwing and drop your PDF on the window, or press Ctrl+O (⌘O on a Mac).
- Open All tools and choose OCR PDF, or type “ocr pdf” in the search box. Shift+Ctrl+P finds any tool from anywhere.
- Choose the document’s language.
- Run it. The searchable PDF opens in a new tab.
- Press Ctrl+S to save, then try Ctrl+F to search it.
What you can do
- Make scanned PDFs searchable and copyable
- Recognize text in many languages
- Straighten tilted scans with Deskew PDF first
- Convert the result to Word or Excel afterwards
Why do it on your computer
OCR runs on your computer with the Tesseract engine. English is built in and works offline; other languages download their data once, a few MB each.
Paperwing is a free, open-source desktop app for Windows and macOS with more than 100 PDF tools. It works offline, there’s no account, and every tool is free. Download it or browse all the tools.
Questions
Does OCR change how the page looks?
No. The scan stays the same; OCR adds invisible text behind it so search and copy work.
How accurate is it?
Clean, straight scans at 300 DPI give the best results. Run Deskew PDF on tilted pages first.
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Open your next PDF
in Paperwing.
Free for Windows and macOS. No account, no subscription, nothing to sign up for.