About the OCR PDF
Scanned PDFs are just pictures of text — you can’t search, select or copy from them. OCR (optical character recognition) reads the text and adds an invisible text layer, giving you a searchable PDF, or simply extracts the recognised text. Recognition runs locally on our server with Tesseract; nothing goes to third-party AI.
How to Use the OCR PDF
- Click the upload box and choose your file, or simply drag and drop it in.
- Adjust the available options to match what you need.
- Click the action button and let House of Convert do the work in seconds.
- Download your result instantly — no email, no account, no watermark.
Why Use the OCR PDF at House of Convert?
- Free forever — every tool on this site is free to use, with no hidden limits.
- Private by design — your file is processed for this request only and never stored on our servers.
- Fast — results are usually ready in a few seconds, even for larger files.
- No installation — works entirely in your browser, on desktop or mobile.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make a scanned PDF searchable?
Upload the PDF, keep “searchable-pdf” and click OCR. Download a PDF you can search and select text in.
How do I extract text from a scanned PDF?
Choose the “text” output to get the recognised text instead of a PDF.
What is OCR?
Optical character recognition — software that recognises letters in images and turns them into real text.
Which languages does OCR PDF support?
English. For Urdu, Arabic, Hindi, Persian, French, Spanish, German or Turkish use OCR to Word.
How accurate is OCR?
Very accurate for clear printed text. Handwriting, low-resolution or skewed scans give poorer results.
Can OCR read handwriting?
Only neat, printed-style handwriting with limited accuracy.
Can I OCR an image instead of a PDF?
Yes, upload a JPG or PNG.
Can OCR PDF give me an editable Word file?
Use OCR to Word to get an editable .docx.
Why does OCR take a while?
Each page is analysed as an image; long documents take longer.
Does the OCR PDF tool store my document?
No, it’s processed and deleted immediately.