Why is my result full of nonsense characters?

Almost always the scan quality or the language setting. Raise the DPI, make sure the pages are upright and not skewed, and confirm the language matches the document.

Does it add a searchable text layer to the PDF?

It produces the recognised text for you to copy or save. To make a searchable document, paste the text alongside the original or keep the .txt next to the PDF.

Why is OCR slower than other tools here?

Recognition is genuinely heavy computation, and it happens on your own CPU rather than a server farm. That is the trade-off for complete privacy.

Are my files uploaded anywhere?

No. Every operation runs inside your browser tab using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Nothing is transmitted to MyToolyard or any third party, and nothing is stored after you close the tab.

Is there a file size or page limit?

There is no artificial limit — the practical ceiling is your device's memory. Files up to roughly 100MB are comfortable on a modern laptop; very large scanned documents are best processed in smaller batches.

Does it work on a phone or tablet?

Yes. The interface is fully responsive and touch-friendly. Very large documents will be slower on mobile because processing uses the device's own CPU and memory.

PDF OCR

Read text out of scanned or photographed PDFs using in-browser OCR — pick the language, pages and scan quality.

No training on your data
Region: global

Drop a scanned PDF to read its text

Click, drag or paste — OCR runs on your device, nothing is uploaded

PDF & DocumentsAdvanced & AI

PDF OCR — Overview

About this tool

What is PDF OCR?

PDF OCR turns a scanned or photographed PDF — a picture of a document, with no selectable text — into text you can copy, search and edit. Recognition runs inside your browser using a WebAssembly OCR engine, so confidential scans never leave your device.

Every page is rendered to a canvas at a resolution you choose, then read character by character. You get the text per page plus a confidence score, which tells you at a glance which pages need a human eye.

Twelve languages are supported, including non-Latin scripts, and the whole job can be interrupted and resumed page by page rather than committing to one long upload.

What it does

What does PDF OCR do?

Everything you need to get text out of a scan:

Recognition in 12 languages, chosen per document
Adjustable scan quality from fast draft to 300 DPI accuracy
Per-page confidence scores that flag doubtful results
Live progress with page-by-page output as it completes
Copy to clipboard or download a .txt file
No uploads, no API keys, no per-page charges

How to use

How to use PDF OCR

1
Drop the scanned PDF
Choose the language of the document — accuracy improves substantially when the language matches.
2
Pick a scan quality
Higher DPI is slower but reads small print far more reliably. Start at the default and raise it if the results look garbled.
3
Run and review
Watch pages complete, check any low-confidence page, then copy the text or download it as a file.

Good to know

Privacy & cost

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, logged, or saved on our servers — safe for confidential or proprietary data.

Use cases & scenarios

Where it fits

Old contracts and deeds

Make a decades-old scanned agreement searchable so you can find a clause without reading forty pages.

Receipts and invoices

Turn a stack of scanned receipts into text you can paste into a spreadsheet for bookkeeping.

Research and archives

Digitise library scans or historical documents into quotable text without sending them to a cloud service.

Value & benefits

Why people pick this tool

✓Free forever — no page caps, watermarks, sign-ups or premium tier
✓100% in-browser processing — your documents never touch a server
✓Works offline once the page has loaded, ideal for confidential files
✓No queues or waiting rooms — the work happens at the speed of your device

Frequently asked questions

FAQs

Final thoughts

The bottom line

OCR is the one PDF feature almost every service charges for, usually per page and always by uploading your document. Running it locally means an unlimited number of pages, no subscription, and scans that stay on your machine.

More PDF conversion tools

Convert between PDF, Word, text, Markdown and images without uploading a file.