PDF OCR & Searchable PDF Maker
Cloud3 free/dayOCR scanned PDFs online - extract text or make a searchable PDF with a text layer. Tesseract, 8 languages incl. Chinese, Japanese and Korean. No install.
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This tool runs on Vecaria's processing service and requires an account. Sign in and you'll return to this page to continue.
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Supports PDF
Choose fileSign-in required; cloud tasks draw from your cloud credits by weight (see pricing for free/Pro rules).
After submission this page polls the job every 2 seconds for up to about 11 minutes; if it times out, please resubmit (the server allows up to 10 minutes per job).
What is it? PDF OCR & Searchable PDF Maker extracts text from scanned PDFs or produces a searchable PDF with a text layer, using tesseract on the server. 8 common languages are supported (English, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Spanish). After the job, the page shows a summary (pages, characters, elapsed time) and a text preview before you download.
TL;DR: OCR scanned PDFs with server-side tesseract: upload the file, pick one of 8 languages, plain-text or searchable-PDF output and a DPI, then review the summary and text preview on the page before downloading. A Pro cloud tool — it needs sign-in and cloud quota, and the file is uploaded to Vecaria's cloud and auto-deleted after the run.
How to use
- Sign in and upload the scanned PDF.
- Choose the language (8 options), output (text or searchable PDF) and DPI (72–600; 200–300 recommended).
- Review the summary and text preview on the page, then download the result.
FAQ
Which languages?
Eight common languages: eng / chi_sim / chi_tra / jpn / kor / deu / fra / spa (single-language selection; mixed-script pages are best recognized with their primary language).
When are files deleted?
Cloud files follow the configured retention window.
What DPI should I use?
200–300 DPI is a good balance. Higher values (up to 600) are more accurate but slower; 72 is the minimum.
Is it free?
No — PDF OCR runs on the server, so it requires an account and cloud quota; it is a Pro cloud tool.
Text or searchable PDF — which output should I pick?
Pick text when you want the words alone (a .txt for search, translation or feeding another tool). Pick searchable PDF when you want the original pages back with an invisible text layer on top — the file keeps looking exactly the same, but you can search and copy text in any PDF reader. Same OCR run, two ways to export.
What does 'searchable PDF' actually mean?
A normal scanned PDF is pictures of pages — no text inside, so nothing matches a search. OCR writes the recognized words into a hidden text layer over those pictures, so readers can find, select and copy the text while the page still looks like the scan.
Does it handle Chinese, Japanese or Korean scans?
Yes — 8 languages are installed: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French and Spanish. Choose one language per run; for a mixed Chinese/English document, pick the dominant language (or run it twice and merge the results).
Why does it need an account when other tools don't?
OCR is compute-heavy, so it runs server-side on tesseract rather than in your browser — that takes cloud quota, which is what the sign-in tracks. Nothing is installed either way: the tool runs in your browser, only the OCR work happens on the server and the file is auto-deleted after the run.
How accurate is the OCR?
It is tesseract, so clear, straight scans at 200–300 DPI give the best results; handwritten notes, skewed phone photos or low-resolution scans will be recognized poorly. Raise the DPI (up to 600) for difficult pages — slower but more accurate; use the in-page text preview to check before downloading.
Examples
- Upload a scanned PDF → pick language & output → review the preview → download text or a searchable PDF
Supported formats
Limitations
- Requires an account and cloud quota.
- OCR accuracy depends on scan quality.
- Powered by tesseract (Apache-2.0); 8 languages available (single-language selection — combined codes like eng+chi_sim are no longer offered).
- DPI is constrained to 72–600; higher is more accurate but slower — 200–300 is a good balance. Text output previews the first 4000 characters on the page before download.
Privacy
This tool has no local processing path: your file is uploaded over an encrypted connection to our own VPS, used only for this job, stored for 1 days by default and auto-deleted — or delete it earlier at any time.