# How to make a scanned PDF searchable with OCR > Turn a scanned PDF into one you can search and copy from, using OCR in your browser. When OCR is needed, how to choose the language, and how to check the recognised text. Canonical: https://mypdf.space/guides/make-scanned-pdf-searchable Last updated: 2026-10-10 ## Direct answer Open [OCR PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/ocr-pdf), select the language the document is written in, and choose **Searchable PDF** as the output. OCR reads each page image and places the recognised words invisibly behind it, so Ctrl+F and copy-and-paste work. OCR is never perfect, so search for a few words and numbers you can see, and spot-check copied text, before you rely on it. ## Introduction A scanned PDF looks like a document but behaves like a photo album. You can read it; your computer can’t. Search finds nothing, copy-and-paste grabs nothing, and a screen reader has nothing to read aloud. Optical character recognition (OCR) fixes this by working out which characters are in each image and writing them into the file as real text. Here’s how to tell whether you need it, how to get a good result, and how to check it. ## Run OCR, step by step 1. Open [OCR PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/ocr-pdf) and drop in the scanned file. If it’s password-protected, [unlock it](https://mypdf.space/tools/unlock-pdf) first. 2. Choose the language the document is written in. 3. Choose the output: **Searchable PDF** keeps the pages and adds a hidden text layer; **Plain text** gives you a .txt file of everything recognised. 4. Start OCR and leave the tab open. Every page is processed on your own device, so a long document takes a while: a few seconds per page on a laptop, longer on a phone. 5. Download the result and check it, as described in the next section. 6. If the file is now too large to send, bring it down with **Target size** in [Compress PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/compress). The hidden text layer is kept. ## Do you actually need OCR? Open the PDF and try to select a single sentence with your cursor. - If individual words highlight, the PDF already has text. You don’t need OCR; [Extract text](https://mypdf.space/tools/extract-text) and [Search PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/search-pdf) will work as it is. - If your cursor draws a box over the whole page, or nothing highlights, the page is an image and you need OCR. - If it’s mixed, like a typed report with a few scanned signature pages, consider running OCR on just the scanned pages. OCR PDF re-renders every page it processes, including pages that already had perfect text, and replaces that text with its own reading. > **tip:** The W3C’s accessibility guidance makes the same point from another angle: a document made only of images of text can’t be read by assistive technology, and OCR is the fix when you don’t have the original source file. ## Choose the right language OCR uses knowledge of the language to decide between look-alike characters: “rn” or “m”, “0” or “O”, “l” or “1”. Run a German letter through the English model and the accented letters and common words come out wrong. Always pick the language the document is written in. OCR PDF currently supports English, Hindi, Spanish, German and French. Each language’s data downloads the first time you use it and is then kept by your browser. > **warning:** The hidden text layer in a searchable PDF uses a basic Latin font. Accents are dropped from it, so search for “resume” rather than “résumé”, and Hindi text can’t be stored in it at all. For Hindi documents, choose the **Plain text** output, which keeps everything that was recognised. ## Get a better result from the scan itself Most OCR errors are decided before you press the button. If you’re scanning the paper yourself: - **Resolution:** 300 DPI is a good default for ordinary printed text. Below about 200 DPI, small characters start to merge. - **Straight pages:** even a slight tilt increases errors. Use your scanner’s deskew option, or rescan crooked pages. - **Contrast:** clean black text on white paper works best. Faint photocopies and coloured backgrounds cost accuracy. - **Phone photos:** shoot from directly above, in good light, with the page filling the frame. [Scan to PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/scan-to-pdf) builds a multi-page PDF from your photos. ## Check what OCR recognised Even on a clean scan, OCR makes mistakes, and they cluster where they matter most: numbers, names, punctuation, and anything in a table. W3C’s guidance is to verify that the converted text is complete and in the right reading order, not to assume it. - **Search test:** press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and search for three or four words you can see on different pages, including one from a footnote or a table. - **Numbers:** search for an amount, date or reference number exactly as printed. This is where 1 and l, 0 and O, or 5 and S get swapped. - **Copy test:** copy a paragraph and paste it into a text editor. Check the words come out in reading order, especially on pages with columns. - **Full check:** for anything you’ll quote or rely on, compare the output of [Extract text](https://mypdf.space/tools/extract-text) with the page itself. > **tip:** Words the engine was very unsure about are left out of the hidden layer rather than guessed. If a search misses a word you can see, it may have been skipped, not misread. - [Open OCR PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/ocr-pdf) ## What changes in the file OCR PDF re-renders every page as a high-resolution image (about 216 DPI) and places each recognised word, invisibly, over the spot where it appears. At normal zoom the page looks the same, but it’s now a fresh image of the original rather than the original page itself, and the file is often larger than before. Keep your original scan. If you need an editable document rather than a searchable one, [converting a scanned PDF to Word](https://mypdf.space/guides/scanned-pdf-to-word) builds on this same OCR step. ## Limits - Handwriting isn’t reliably recognised. The engine is trained on printed text. - Supported languages are English, Hindi, Spanish, German and French. For Hindi, use the plain text output. - The searchable layer drops accents, so search without them. - Every page is re-rendered, including pages that already had real text, and their text is replaced by the OCR reading. - OCR runs on your device: slower than a server, and much slower on a phone. - Password-protected PDFs have to be unlocked first. ## FAQ ### How do I know if my PDF needs OCR? Try to select a sentence. If individual words highlight, the PDF already has text and you don’t need OCR. If you can only select the whole page, or nothing at all, it’s a scan and needs OCR. ### Will OCR change how my document looks? At normal zoom it looks the same, but each page is re-rendered as a new image with the text placed invisibly over it. Keep the original if you need the untouched scan. ### How accurate is OCR? On a straight, clean, 300 DPI scan of printed text, most words come out right. Accuracy drops with faint copies, unusual fonts, tables and handwriting. Always check numbers and names. ### Can I OCR a Hindi document? Yes. Choose Hindi and the plain text output. The hidden text layer in a searchable PDF can’t store Hindi characters. ### Is my scan uploaded? No. The OCR engine runs in your browser. The only download is the language data, the first time you use each language. ## Related - [OCR PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/ocr-pdf) - [Scan to PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/scan-to-pdf) - [Extract text](https://mypdf.space/tools/extract-text) - [Search PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/search-pdf) - [Compress PDF](https://mypdf.space/tools/compress) - [PDF to Word](https://mypdf.space/tools/pdf-to-word) - [All guides](https://mypdf.space/guides)