A searchable PDF has an invisible text layer over the scanned images — allowing Ctrl+F search, text selection, and copy-paste. Here is how to create one for free.
Navigate to the OCR tool and upload your scanned PDF.
Choose your document language from the picker. Click Scan All Pages. The Tesseract engine runs on every page and creates an invisible text layer aligned with the scanned content.
Tip: The searchable PDF preserves the original scanned appearance — the page still looks exactly like the scan. The text layer is invisible but fully functional for search.
Click Save PDF. Open the downloaded file in any PDF viewer and press Ctrl+F — you can now search for any word in the document.
Yes. The visual appearance is unchanged — the text layer is invisible and sits underneath the scanned image.
Yes — completely free at pdfeditor.onl/ocr-pdf.