PDFKira

OCR PDF

Recognize text in scanned PDF pages and create a searchable copy that keeps the scan as its visible background. Processing stays in your browser.

How it works

  1. Upload a scanned PDF and choose the pages to recognize.
  2. Run English OCR locally and follow per-page progress.
  3. Download a searchable PDF, or save recognized text as a .txt file.

Why use this tool

Keep scans private

Page rendering and OCR use browser-side PDF.js and Tesseract; files are not sent to a remote service.

Searchable output

Recognized words are added as an invisible text layer over each original page image.

Choose pages

Process a page range when you only need text from part of a document.

Frequently asked questions

  • Does my scanned PDF leave my browser?

    No. PDF rendering, OCR, and searchable-PDF creation run locally in your browser. The OCR engine and English language data are served from PDFKira's own site.

  • What are the file limits?

    You can OCR a PDF up to 50 MB and 20 pages. Documents over 10 pages may take a few minutes; you can select a page range to process fewer pages.

  • How accurate is PDF OCR?

    Results depend on scan resolution, contrast, skew, handwriting, and text quality. Clear scans at 150 DPI or higher generally work best; always check important results.

  • Can I use OCR on a phone?

    The page supports mobile browsers, but OCR is memory- and processor-intensive. A desktop or tablet is recommended for larger scans.

  • Is OCR PDF free?

    Yes. PDFKira's browser-based OCR is free to use, with no account required.