How to OCR a PDF

  1. 1

    Upload your scanned PDF

    Upload a PDF that contains scanned pages with no selectable text.

  2. 2

    Select language

    Choose the primary language of the document text for best recognition accuracy.

  3. 3

    Download the searchable PDF

    Click Run OCR. Download the output PDF with a text layer added to every page.

About OCR PDF tool

Scanned documents are PDF files that contain only images — there is no underlying text, so you cannot select, search, copy, or index any content. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) solves this by analysing each page image and generating a text layer that sits invisibly beneath the original image, making the document fully searchable and copy-pastable.

DocumentFlipper uses Tesseract, one of the most accurate open-source OCR engines available, to recognise text in over 100 languages. After OCR is applied, you can open the resulting PDF in any reader and use Ctrl+F to search for words, select and copy text passages, and have the document indexed by search engines or document management systems.

Your file is processed on our secure server and deleted within two hours. OCR accuracy depends on scan quality — higher resolution scans produce better results.

Frequently asked questions

What is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) analyses scanned page images and generates a hidden text layer, making the document searchable and selectable.
Which languages does the OCR tool support?
DocumentFlipper's OCR supports over 100 languages using the Tesseract engine. Select your document's primary language for best results.
How does scan quality affect OCR accuracy?
Higher resolution scans (300 DPI or above) produce more accurate recognition. Blurry, low-resolution, or handwritten content reduces accuracy.
Will the original page images be preserved?
Yes. The original page images remain exactly as they were. The text layer is added invisibly beneath them.
How long are my files stored?
Your uploaded PDF and the OCR output are automatically deleted from our servers within two hours.