# OCR a PDF or image

> Pull text out of scanned PDFs and images using Tesseract.js, the standard open-source OCR engine, running locally.

Open the tool: https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/ocr-pdf

Extract text from a scanned PDF or image. Free, no signup. Runs entirely in your browser; files are never uploaded.

## How it works

Drop a PDF or an image (PNG, JPG, WebP). Pick a language: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, or Hindi. The first time you use a language, Tesseract downloads its trained data (~10 MB per language) and caches it for future runs. For PDFs, each page is rendered at 2x scale, OCR'd, and the recognized text is concatenated with page markers (===== Page N =====). Output is a plain .txt file. Accuracy depends on the source: clean printed text gets near-perfect results, low-resolution scans and handwriting are harder. This is recognition only, the original PDF isn't modified, the text is downloaded as a separate file.

## How to use it

1. **Drop a scanned PDF or image.** PNG, JPG, WebP, and multi-page PDFs all work.
2. **Pick the language.** Choose one of 13 languages — the trained data (~10 MB) downloads once and caches.
3. **Run OCR.** Each page is rendered at 2x and recognized locally by Tesseract.js.
4. **Download the text.** Grab the .txt output, with page markers between pages, and spot-check the results.

## Frequently asked questions

### How accurate is the OCR?

On clean printed text at 200+ DPI, typically 95-99% character accuracy. Bad scans, faxes, and handwriting score much lower. The output is plain text, you'll want to spot-check.

### Which languages are supported?

13: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi. One language per run.

### Is OCR done in my browser or on a server?

In your browser. Tesseract.js runs as WebAssembly, the language model loads from CDN once then caches.

### Can I OCR a multi-page PDF?

Yes. Each page is processed in sequence and the output text includes page markers.

## Related tools

- [Merge PDFs](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/merge-pdf): Combine multiple PDFs into one file.
- [Split PDF](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/split-pdf): Click between pages to cut, split every N pages, or pull pages out.
- [Compress PDF](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/compress-pdf): Shrink a PDF or fit it under a size limit, and compare before saving.
- [Rotate pages](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/rotate-pdf): Turn pages the right way up. Sideways pages are found for you.
- [Extract pages](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/extract-pages): Pull pages out as a new PDF.
- [Watermark PDF](https://yourbrowsercandoit.com/watermark-pdf): Add text or a logo, placed and previewed on the real page.