OCR: convert an image or scanned PDF to text
Read the text in a photo, screenshot or scanned PDF with Tesseract OCR, in 14 languages including Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Get plain text, or a searchable PDF you can select and search.
How to OCR: convert an image or scanned PDF to text
- 1
Select or drop an image or a scanned PDF.
- 2
Choose the languages in the document.
- 3
Choose plain text or a searchable PDF.
- 4
Run it, then check the result against the original.
What this tool does
- 14 languages, up to three at once
- Images and multi-page scanned PDFs
- Plain text, or a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer
- The engine's own confidence score shown with every result
- Reads the file signature instead of trusting the file extension.
- Reports the measured size of the file your browser produced.
Questions about OCR: image or scan to text
- How accurate is it?
- It depends on the picture. Sharp, straight, well-lit printed text reads well; handwriting, photos at an angle and small or decorative fonts often do not. Each result shows the confidence score Tesseract reports, and below 60% it is marked Needs review. That score is the engine's own estimate, not a measured accuracy.
- What is a searchable PDF?
- The scanned page as a picture, with the recognized text laid invisibly on top. It looks like the scan, but you can select, copy and search its text.
- Why choose the language?
- Tesseract reads each language with its own model. Choosing the wrong one gives garbled results, and choosing many slows it down, so pick the one to three languages actually in the document.
- Is my file uploaded to a server?
- No. The Tesseract recognizer and the language data you chose is downloaded to your browser the first time you use this tool, and your file is processed on your own device. Nothing you choose is sent to us or to the download service.