Extract Text from Any PDF or Image
OCR in 30+ languages. Export as searchable PDF, Word DOCX, TXT or Markdown. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing uploaded to a server.
Drag & drop or click to upload
Scanned PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP or TIFF
Max 100 pages per PDF · Multiple images supported
Initialising…
Your file is ready
Supported Languages
Export Formats
- Searchable PDF (recommended) — Original layout preserved; text is selectable in any PDF viewer
- Word Document (.docx) — Open and edit in Microsoft Word or Google Docs
- Plain Text (.txt) — Clean text output, UTF-8 encoded
- Markdown (.md) — Structured text with paragraph grouping
100% Private
All OCR processing runs inside your browser using WebAssembly. Your files are never sent to any server — not even ours. Processing is as private as reading a document on your own screen.
Why PDFlexa AI OCR?
Tesseract LSTM Engine
Powered by Tesseract's LSTM neural network — the industry standard for open-source OCR, with 95–99% word accuracy on clean documents.
Layout Preserved
The Searchable PDF export keeps the original page image intact and adds an invisible text layer — preserving every margin, column, and visual element.
Background Processing
A dedicated Web Worker runs OCR in a background thread — your browser tab stays fully interactive while large, multi-page documents are processed.
33 Languages
From Arabic and Chinese to Ukrainian and Thai — cover virtually every major world language including right-to-left scripts.
4 Export Formats
Searchable PDF, Word DOCX, plain TXT and Markdown — export directly to the format that fits your workflow, no conversion step needed.
Zero Data Retention
Because processing never leaves your browser, there are no files to retain or delete. Your documents are as private as a file on your desktop.
How to Extract Text from a Scanned PDF
Upload your scanned PDF or image
Drag and drop a scanned PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP or TIFF into the upload area, or click "Choose file" to browse. Multi-page PDFs and multiple image files are supported.
Select language and output format
Choose the language the document is written in from 33 available options. Then pick your preferred export format — searchable PDF is recommended for maximum compatibility.
Click "Start OCR" and download
The OCR engine processes your document in a background worker. A progress bar shows the current page being processed. When complete, download your result instantly.
Frequently Asked Questions about OCR
What is OCR and how does it work?
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) converts images of text — scanned documents, photos of printed pages, or image-only PDFs — into machine-readable characters. The engine analyses pixel patterns and maps them to letters, numbers and punctuation. PDFlexa uses Tesseract, the world's most accurate open-source OCR engine, running entirely in your browser.
Which file formats does the OCR tool accept?
You can upload scanned PDF files, JPEG/JPG, PNG, WebP and TIFF images. Multi-page PDFs are processed page by page (up to 100 pages per file). Batch upload allows you to OCR multiple images at once.
How many languages does the OCR engine support?
The OCR engine supports 33 languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, and more. Select the correct document language before processing to maximise accuracy.
Is my document uploaded to PDFlexa servers?
No. Every step — PDF rendering, OCR recognition, and output generation — runs entirely inside your browser using WebAssembly and JavaScript. Your files never leave your device, making this the most private OCR tool available online.
What output formats can I export?
You can export the recognised text as a Searchable PDF (original image with an invisible text layer, making it selectable and copy-pasteable in any PDF viewer), plain TXT, Microsoft Word DOCX, or Markdown. All formats preserve the logical reading order of the text.
How accurate is the text recognition?
Accuracy depends on document quality, resolution, and language. Clean, high-resolution scans at 300 DPI or above in a supported language typically achieve 98%+ word accuracy with Tesseract's LSTM engine. Handwriting, decorative fonts, low-contrast documents or mixed-language pages will have lower accuracy.
Can I OCR a large PDF with many pages?
Yes. The OCR engine processes pages sequentially using a background Web Worker, so your browser UI stays responsive throughout. Up to 100 pages per file are supported. For very large documents, processing may take a few minutes — a real-time progress indicator shows which page is being processed.
Does OCR preserve the original document layout?
The searchable PDF export preserves the original visual layout perfectly, because the page image is kept intact and text is written as an invisible overlay. For TXT, DOCX and Markdown exports, the text is extracted in reading order but visual formatting (columns, tables) is approximated rather than reproduced exactly.