The problem with scanned PDFs
When you scan a physical document, you're essentially taking a photograph of it. The result is a PDF that contains an image of text — not actual text. This means:
- You cannot search for words inside the document
- You cannot copy or paste text from it
- Screen readers for visually impaired users cannot read it
- Google and other search engines cannot index its content
What OCR does
OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. It's a technology that looks at the image of your document, identifies letter shapes, and converts them into real, selectable, searchable text.
After OCR processing, your PDF becomes a searchable PDF — it still looks the same visually, but now has an invisible text layer underneath the image that computers can read.
How accurate is modern OCR?
For clearly printed documents in good condition:
- Printed text: 99%+ accuracy
- Handwriting: 70–90% depending on clarity
- Low-quality scans or faded ink: 80–95%
Languages with complex scripts (Arabic, Chinese, Korean) work well with modern OCR engines like Tesseract, which PDFCraft uses.
How to use OCR on PDFCraft
- Open the OCR PDF tool.
- Upload your scanned PDF or image (JPG, PNG, TIFF also accepted).
- Select your document language for better accuracy.
- Click Run OCR.
- Download your searchable PDF.
When should you use OCR?
- Scanned contracts or legal documents you need to search
- Old printed reports being digitized
- Receipts or invoices from paper archives
- Any document where Ctrl+F doesn't work