How to OCR a Scanned PDF
A scanned PDF often contains only page images. Optical character recognition, or OCR, analyzes those images so words can be searched, selected, and reused.
OCR a scanned PDFOCR a PDF in three steps
OCR uses temporary server processing because recognizing text across document images is computationally intensive.
- 1.Open OCR PDF and select the scanned document.
- 2.Choose the document language when available and start OCR.
- 3.Download the searchable result and compare important names and numbers with the scan.
Improve OCR accuracy
Use straight pages, clear contrast, adequate resolution, and the correct recognition language. Handwriting, decorative fonts, faint scans, and skewed pages are more difficult to recognize accurately.
Always review critical information
OCR can confuse similar characters such as zero and O or one and lowercase l. Review account numbers, dates, legal names, and financial figures before relying on extracted text.
Frequently asked questions
Does OCR translate the document?
No. OCR recognizes the existing language. Use Translate PDF afterward when another language is required.
Why is some recognized text wrong?
Recognition depends on scan clarity, page alignment, font shape, language, and image resolution.