OCR PDF

OCR PDF online free: make scanned PDFs searchable

Turn scanned PDFs and photos of documents into searchable PDFs whose text you can select and copy, or get the text out as a TXT file. Works in English, Hindi and Tamil.

Free, no account. OCR PDF runs in your browser on this page. Your files are processed on Folio's own server and deleted automatically after 6 hours.

All 41 PDF tools FAQ

Uses Tesseract OCR. English, Hindi and Tamil are installed.

How to OCR PDF with Folio

  1. Open OCR PDF on this page, or pick it from the list of all tools on the Folio home page.
  2. Add your files: drop them on the page or click to pick them.
  3. Set the options you need, such as languages and output.
  4. Run it and download the result. When there are several output files you can download them together as a ZIP.

What you can set

  • Languages
  • Output
  • Scan resolution (DPI)
  • Pages
  • Re-OCR pages that already have text

Files it accepts

PDF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, TIF, TIFF, BMP. Password-protected PDFs work too: enter the password in the options.

OCR PDF: questions and answers

How do I make a scanned PDF searchable?

Add the scanned PDF to OCR PDF and keep the output on “searchable PDF”. Folio adds an invisible text layer, so you can search, select and copy the text while the page looks the same.

Can Folio OCR Hindi or Tamil documents?

Yes. English, Hindi and Tamil are installed. The auto setting reads English plus the page's own script when Folio detects it, or you can set the languages yourself, for example eng+hin or eng+tam.

Can I OCR a photo or image, not just a PDF?

Yes. OCR PDF also accepts PNG, JPG, TIFF and BMP images.

Can I just get the text out of a scan?

Yes. Choose the “text only” output to get a plain text file instead of a PDF.

Is OCR PDF free?

Yes. OCR PDF on Folio is free, with no account, no sign-up and no watermark on the result.

Are my files safe?

Your files are processed on Folio's own server only to run the tool, and deleted automatically after 6 hours. There is no account, so they are not linked to you.

Related tools

  • AI Summarizer Summarize a PDF with Folio's built-in extractive summarizer.
  • Compare PDF Compare two versions of a document side by side: removed words in red, added words in green, plus an optional visual pixel diff.

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