A scanned PDF is often just a set of page images. You can read it visually, but your computer may not be able to search, copy or extract the text. OCR, or optical character recognition, analyzes those images and creates machine-readable text.
OCR PDF: extract text from scans
Use OCR PDF when you want the recognized text as output. This is useful for copying text from scanned forms, old notes, certificates, notices or image-only documents. OCR output is best reviewed before official use because recognition can make mistakes.
Make PDF Searchable: keep the PDF format
Use Make PDF Searchable when you want a PDF that still looks like the original scan but also contains a searchable text layer. This is useful for archiving, document search and future text extraction.
How to improve OCR accuracy
- Use clear scans, preferably around 200-300 DPI.
- Keep pages straight and avoid shadows or blurred photos.
- Use the correct language option where available.
- Review names, numbers, dates and legal or financial values manually.
What OCR cannot guarantee
OCR is not a legal certification of document content. Handwriting, low-quality scans, stamps over text, decorative fonts and poor contrast can reduce accuracy. For important documents, use OCR as a convenience tool and verify the output manually.
Related workflow
After OCR, you can use PDF to Text, PDF to Word, PDF to Markdown or PDF to JSON depending on how you want to reuse the content.