OCR PDF - Text Recognition
Extract text from scanned documents and turn image-based PDFs into searchable, selectable files. Supports 15 languages.
Make Your Scanned PDFs Searchable
Extract text from any scanned document with our desktop OCR tool. One-time purchase, lifetime access.
Get PDF Compresso - £14.99What is OCR?
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. It is the technology that reads text from images and turns it into actual, usable text data. When you scan a paper document into a PDF, the pages are saved as images. The text you see on the page is not real text that a computer can understand. It is just a picture of text.
PDF Compresso's OCR tool analyses each page of your scanned PDF, recognizes the characters in the images, and either produces a searchable PDF or extracts the raw text for you to use elsewhere.
Two Output Modes
Searchable PDF
Creates a new PDF that looks identical to the original but has an invisible text layer added on top. This means you can select text, use Ctrl+F to search, and copy content from the document. The original page quality is fully preserved.
Extract Text Only
Pulls out all recognized text and presents it in a simple text format. You can copy it to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file. Great for quickly grabbing content from old scanned documents.
How to Use OCR in PDF Compresso
- Open PDF Compresso and navigate to the Convert & Security page
- Select the OCR tab from the navigation bar
- Upload your scanned PDF by clicking or dragging into the upload zone
- Choose your language from the dropdown (English is selected by default)
- Select your output mode - Searchable PDF or Extract Text Only
- Click Run OCR and wait for processing
- Download your result or copy the extracted text
Supported Languages
- English, Spanish, French, German, Italian
- Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian
- Chinese (Simplified and Traditional)
- Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi
Common Uses for PDF OCR
- Digitizing old paperwork - Turn stacks of scanned documents into searchable files
- Extracting data from receipts - Pull text from scanned invoices and expense reports
- Making archives searchable - Add text layers to historical documents for easy lookup
- Copying text from image PDFs - Grab content from PDFs that were created from photos or screenshots
- Accessibility - Make scanned documents readable by screen readers
Frequently Asked Questions
Does OCR work on all PDFs?
OCR is designed for scanned or image-based PDFs. If your PDF already contains selectable text, you likely don't need OCR. It works best on clearly scanned documents with readable text.
How accurate is the text recognition?
Accuracy depends on the quality of the scan. Clean, high-resolution scans produce excellent results. Blurry, skewed, or low-resolution images may produce less accurate output. Words with very low confidence scores are automatically filtered out.
Is my document uploaded to a server?
No. All OCR processing happens locally on your computer. Your documents never leave your device. The OCR engine runs entirely within the application.