The tool adds an invisible text layer to a scanned PDF document, making its content searchable and selectable. The output preserves the original visual appearance of the page, but you gain the ability to copy snippets and search for words just as you would in a regular text file.
When this is useful
Imagine you received a multi-page scanned contract in PDF format and urgently need to find the clause about delivery terms. Instead of tedious scrolling, you run the recognition and within a minute search by keywords. Another case: you are writing an essay and found a suitable quote in a scanned library book — after processing, you can simply copy and paste it into your document.
Step-by-step instructions
- On the tool's page, click the upload area and select your PDF file containing scans.
- Then, from the dropdown list, specify the language of the document to improve recognition accuracy.
- Start the process with the 'Recognize' button, wait for the processing to finish, and then download the resulting PDF with the text layer.
How to verify the result
After downloading the result, open it in a PDF reader and try to select a text fragment with the cursor. If the selection works incorrectly or the text is not searchable, make sure you correctly selected the source language and that the original file is not a completely low-quality graphic image.
Important limitations
It is crucial to understand that the tool does not alter the appearance of the pages but merely adds recognized text on top of them. The quality of the result directly depends on the scan's clarity: handwritten text, non-standard fonts, or heavy distortions may lead to recognition errors.