---
title: "OCR a PDF: make scans searchable, offline | Paperwing"
description: "Make scanned PDFs searchable and copyable with OCR on Windows or Mac in Paperwing, a free desktop app. English works fully offline."
url: https://paperwingapp.com/tools/ocr-pdf/
---

1. [Home](https://paperwingapp.com/)
2. [Tools](https://paperwingapp.com/tools/)
3. OCR PDF

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.

[Download for Windows](https://github.com/rohanvijaykumar/paperwing/releases/download/v1.2.3/Paperwing-Setup-1.2.3-x64.exe) · [Download for Mac](https://github.com/rohanvijaykumar/paperwing/releases/download/v1.2.3/Paperwing-1.2.3-mac-arm64.dmg) · [Download Paperwing](https://paperwingapp.com/download/)

v1.2.3 · Windows 10 and 11 · 188 MB v1.2.3 · Apple Silicon · 192 MB · [Intel Mac?](https://paperwingapp.com/download/#mac) Free for Windows and macOS · v1.2.3 [Other versions](https://paperwingapp.com/download/)

## How to OCR a PDF with Paperwing

1. Open Paperwing and drop your PDF on the window, or press Ctrl+O (⌘O on a Mac).
2. Open **All tools** and choose **OCR PDF** , or type “ocr pdf” in the search box. Shift+Ctrl+P finds any tool from anywhere.
3. Choose the document’s language.
4. Run it. The searchable PDF opens in a new tab.
5. 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](https://paperwingapp.com/download/) or [browse all the tools](https://paperwingapp.com/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.

## Related tools

[**PDF to Word** Turn PDFs into editable Word documents on Windows or Mac with Paperwing, a free desktop app.](https://paperwingapp.com/tools/pdf-to-word/) · [**PDF tables** Extract tables from PDFs into Excel (XLSX) or CSV on Windows or Mac with Paperwing, a free desktop app.](https://paperwingapp.com/tools/pdf-to-excel/) · [**Edit a PDF** Edit the text and images in a PDF on Windows or Mac with Paperwing, a free desktop app.](https://paperwingapp.com/tools/edit-pdf/) · [**Compress a PDF** Make PDFs smaller on Windows or Mac with Paperwing, a free desktop app.](https://paperwingapp.com/tools/compress-pdf/)

## Open your next PDF in Paperwing.

Free for Windows and macOS. No account, no subscription, nothing to sign up for.

[Download for Windows](https://github.com/rohanvijaykumar/paperwing/releases/download/v1.2.3/Paperwing-Setup-1.2.3-x64.exe) · [Download for Mac](https://github.com/rohanvijaykumar/paperwing/releases/download/v1.2.3/Paperwing-1.2.3-mac-arm64.dmg) · [Download Paperwing](https://paperwingapp.com/download/) · [Star on GitHub](https://github.com/rohanvijaykumar/paperwing)

v1.2.3 · Windows 10 and 11 · 188 MB v1.2.3 · Apple Silicon · 192 MB · [Intel Mac?](https://paperwingapp.com/download/#mac) Free for Windows and macOS · v1.2.3 [Other versions](https://paperwingapp.com/download/)