# Make a scanned PDF searchable with OCR

Source: https://www.mergevanta.com/ocr-pdf
Updated: 2026-10-22

> OCR PDF free with no watermark: make scanned PDFs and images searchable or extract their text in 20 languages. OCR runs in your browser, files never uploaded.

Add an invisible text layer to scanned PDFs and photos so you can search, select and copy the words, or save the text as a .txt file. Recognition runs in your browser in 20 languages; it's free, has no watermark and your file never leaves your device.

## How do I make a scanned PDF searchable for free?

Add the scanned PDF to Mergevanta's OCR PDF tool, choose the document's language and press Make searchable. Text is recognized in your browser and laid invisibly over each page, so the PDF looks the same but can be searched, selected and copied. It's free, adds no watermark and the file is never uploaded.

## Key facts

- **Price:** Free
- **Watermark:** None
- **Sign-up:** Not required
- **Accepts:** .pdf, JPG, PNG, WebP
- **You get:** A searchable .pdf, a .txt file, or both
- **Processing:** In your browser (Tesseract OCR) — only the engine and language data are downloaded, never your file
- **Files stored:** Never
- **Works on:** Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone, iPad and Android

## Why use Mergevanta

- **Pages look exactly the same:** The original page images stay untouched. The recognized words sit on top as invisible text, placed where they appear on the page.
- **20 languages:** Including English, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian — choose up to three at once for mixed documents.
- **Text you can reuse:** Download a .txt of every page, or copy the recognized text straight from the preview.
- **Never uploaded:** Recognition runs in your browser. Only the OCR engine and language data are downloaded the first time, then your browser keeps them.

## How to use it

1. Press Choose file and add a scanned PDF, or one or more JPG, PNG or WebP images.
2. Pick the language of the text — up to three for documents that mix languages.
3. Choose what you get: Searchable PDF, Text file (.txt) or Both.
4. Leave Skip pages that already have text on, so typed pages stay as they are.
5. Press Make searchable (or Extract text) and download the result.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is my document uploaded for OCR?

No. OCR runs in your browser. The first run downloads the OCR engine (about 1.4 MB) and the data for each language you pick (about 1–3 MB each) from a public CDN, and your browser keeps them for next time. Your document never leaves your device.

### How accurate is the OCR?

Clean, straight scans of printed text at around 300 dpi are usually read very accurately. Blurry photos, handwriting, tiny print and decorative fonts lower accuracy. The result shows an average confidence score, so you know when to double-check names and numbers.

### Will the PDF look different after OCR?

No. Every page keeps its original image; the text is added as an invisible layer, so the PDF prints and displays the same while search, selection and copy work.

### Which languages can it read?

English, Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, Turkish, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Dutch and Polish. Choose up to three at once.

### What happens to pages that already have text?

They are skipped by default, so typed pages aren't read twice. Turn off Skip pages that already have text to run OCR on them anyway.

### Can I OCR a password-protected PDF?

Yes. Enter the password when asked; it is only used in your browser tab. The searchable PDF you download has no password.

### How do I scan paper first?

Photograph the pages with [Scan to PDF](https://www.mergevanta.com/scan-to-pdf), which straightens and cleans them into one PDF, then bring that file here to make it searchable.

## Related tools

- [Scan to PDF](https://www.mergevanta.com/scan-to-pdf)
- [PDF to Word](https://www.mergevanta.com/pdf-to-word)
- [Compress PDF](https://www.mergevanta.com/compress-pdf)