OCR PDF
Free·No signup·Files never leave your device
How to make a scanned PDF searchable in 3 steps
Turn images of text into text you can search and copy — without uploading a single page.
Upload the scanned PDF
Drop your scan in the box above. It opens locally, instantly — nothing is sent anywhere.
Pick document languages
Choose up to 3 languages that appear in the document. The OCR engine loads on your device the first time you run it.
Download your files
Get a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer, plus the extracted text as a plain .txt file you can copy from.
Why OCR PDFs with AmiPDF
Private by design — recognition happens on your device, so contracts, IDs, and internal documents never leave your browser.
Private by design
Processing happens entirely inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or shared — ever.
No signup, no watermark
No account, no email, no limits. Your output comes out exactly as your files went in.
Two outputs, one run
Every run produces a searchable PDF for archiving and a plain-text file for quoting, translating, or reformatting.
Works on any device
The same fast experience on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS — no installation.
When to run OCR on a PDF
Rescue scanned contracts so you can finally search them, digitize paper receipts and IDs without a scanner app, and make archival documents copy-pastable for quotes and translations. Multi-language documents — like a customs form or a bilingual certificate — work too: pick up to 3 languages and run once.
Because recognition runs entirely on your device, sensitive scans such as passports, medical records, and legal filings are never uploaded to any server.
OCR PDFs on any platform
AmiPDF runs in your browser — nothing to install, nothing to configure, nothing to update.
Windows
Chrome, Edge, Firefox
macOS
Safari, Chrome
Linux
Any modern browser
iOS
Safari on iPhone, iPad
Android
Chrome, Samsung Internet
Frequently asked questions
Is my scanned PDF uploaded to a server?
No. OCR runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. Neither your PDF nor the page images are ever transmitted.
What is a searchable PDF?
A PDF that keeps the original page images but adds an invisible text layer behind them. You can search, select, and copy text in any PDF reader, while the pages look exactly like the scan.
Why does the first run take a moment to start?
The OCR engine and the language packs (a few MB each) are downloaded once from this site and cached by your browser. Subsequent runs — and other files in the same language — start immediately.
How accurate is the recognition?
Clean, printed text at normal scan quality is recognized well. Blurry photos, handwriting, heavy skew, or very low resolution reduce accuracy. Straighten and sharpen the scan when possible.
Can I edit the text in the searchable PDF?
The text layer is meant for search and copy, not for editing — the pages remain images. To edit the content, copy the extracted text or convert the PDF to Word first.
Which languages are supported?
English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Hindi, Vietnamese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, German, French, and Arabic — up to 3 languages per document.
Related PDF tools
Keep going — more free PDF tools for whatever comes next.