OCR

Make scanned PDFs searchable.

Runs Tesseract OCR in your browser to add an invisible text layer. The result is searchable and copy-pasteable. No file ever leaves your device.

stays on this device

How it works

How to OCR a PDF

  1. 1

    Upload your scanned PDF

    Drag your scanned PDF onto the page or click to browse. The file stays on your device - nothing is sent to any server.

  2. 2

    Select language

    Choose the primary language of the text in your document. The Tesseract OCR engine supports 14 languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

  3. 3

    Download searchable PDF

    Click Run OCR. The tool processes each page in your browser using WebAssembly and returns a PDF with a transparent text layer, ready to search, copy, and index.

PDFsuite OCR runs entirely in your browser using Tesseract.js compiled to WebAssembly - no upload, no server, no cloud queue. Your scanned documents stay private and offline on your own machine. Because processing happens locally, there are no per-page fees and no file-size caps. The free tool handles everything from single-page receipts to multi-hundred-page scanned archives.

The WebAssembly Tesseract engine recognises text in 14 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, and Korean. Mixed-language documents are supported by selecting the dominant language. After OCR, each page gets an invisible text layer placed precisely over the original image, so the visual appearance of the PDF is unchanged while every word becomes searchable and copy-pasteable.

Browser-based OCR is ideal when privacy matters - medical records, legal filings, and financial statements never leave your device. Because the Tesseract WASM module is loaded once and cached, repeated runs on multiple files are fast even when offline. The output is a standard PDF/A-compatible file that works in every PDF viewer, search engine crawler, and document management system.

FAQ

Common questions

Which languages does the OCR tool support?
The tool supports 14 languages powered by the Tesseract.js WebAssembly engine: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, and Korean. Select your language from the dropdown before running OCR. For documents with mixed scripts, choose the language that covers the majority of the text.
Does OCR work offline and without uploading my file?
Yes - completely. The Tesseract WebAssembly module is downloaded to your browser once and then cached. After that initial load, OCR runs entirely offline on your device. Your PDF is never transmitted to any server. This makes it safe for confidential documents like medical records, contracts, and financial statements.
Which browsers support this OCR tool?
Any modern browser with WebAssembly support works - Chrome 57+, Firefox 53+, Safari 11+, and Edge 16+. That covers virtually all desktop and mobile browsers in use today. If your browser is up to date, OCR will work without installing anything. Internet Explorer is not supported.