A searchable PDF lets you use Ctrl+F to find words, select and copy text, and have the content indexed by search engines and document management systems. Here is how to convert a non-searchable scanned PDF into a fully searchable document.
PDFs created by scanning physical documents are saved as image layers — each page is essentially a photo. There is no text layer, so Ctrl+F finds nothing. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads the image and generates a real text layer.
Upload your scanned PDF at pdfeditor.onl/ocr-pdf, click Scan All Pages, and wait for the OCR engine to process each page. You will see the recognized text overlaid on the document.
Tip: Select the correct language before scanning for best results. The OCR engine performs significantly better when it knows which character set to look for.
Click Save PDF. The output has a text layer embedded behind each scanned page image — it will be searchable and copyable in any PDF viewer.
No. The visual appearance of each page stays exactly the same. The OCR text is added as an invisible layer behind the scanned image.
Yes. pdfeditor.onl/ocr-pdf works in Safari on macOS. No additional software is needed.
Accuracy depends on scan quality, font clarity, and language. Clean scans of printed text typically achieve 95%+ accuracy. Handwritten text is less reliable.