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5 min read
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By Administrator
How to OCR a Scanned PDF and Extract Text
Turn scanned PDFs and image-based documents into searchable, copyable text using browser-based OCR.
#ocr
#pdf
#scan
#text-extraction
What is OCR?
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads pixels and turns them into actual text. It's what makes a scanned book searchable, or lets you copy a paragraph from a photo of a sign.
When you need OCR
- Old scanned contracts where Ctrl+F finds nothing.
- Photos of receipts you want to log into a spreadsheet.
- Image-based PDFs you want to convert to Word.
How to OCR
- Open OCR.
- Upload your scanned PDF or image.
- Pick the document language (English, French, Arabic, Spanish, etc.).
- Click Run OCR — wait a few seconds per page.
- Copy the text or download as
.txt.
Quality tips
- Higher-resolution scans (300 DPI+) yield much better results.
- Avoid pictures of pictures — scan the original whenever possible.
- For Arabic, make sure the page isn't tilted; OCR is much less forgiving with right-to-left scripts.