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Guides / How to Make a Scanned PDF Searchable (OCR)

How to Make a Scanned PDF Searchable (OCR)

When you scan a document, the result is a picture of the page — so Ctrl+F finds nothing and you can't copy a sentence. OCR (optical character recognition) reads the image and adds an invisible, selectable text layer behind it.

Open the OCR tool

  1. 1. Open the OCR tool

    Go to the OCR PDF tool and upload your scanned PDF.

  2. 2. Choose the language

    Pick the document's language for the best accuracy. Recognition runs in your browser; the first run downloads a small language file.

  3. 3. Run recognition

    Process the file. DocuScan rebuilds it as a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer, and also gives you the plain text to copy or download.

  4. 4. Save the result

    Download the searchable PDF — now Ctrl+F and copy/paste work everywhere.

Tips

  • Sharper, higher-contrast scans OCR far more accurately — use Black & White when scanning.
  • OCR is great before compressing, since compression removes any existing text layer.

Ready to try it?

Open the OCR tool
How to Make a Scanned PDF Searchable (OCR) | DocuScan