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OCR PDF Studio

Extract existing PDF text, manually transcribe scanned pages, align searchable text boxes, and optionally recognize text with local OCR — all on your device.

Multilingual OCRSearchable PDFPage-by-page reviewNo document uploads
YOUR WORKSPACE

OCR PDF Studio

Start with No AI — existing text and manual correction. Optional OCR downloads language data only with your approval.

01

Select a PDF

Scanned or mixed image/text PDF

Drop your PDF hereor click to browse from your devicePDF only · Up to 80 MB · Up to 250 pages
02

Text workflow

Extract manually or opt into local OCR

Unselected pages stay unchanged in the output PDF. Up to 80 selected pages per run.
No-AI extraction reads only embedded PDF text. Scanned image pixels need manually positioned transcription; no recognition model downloads.
Source preservation

Manually aligned text boxes are added invisibly to copied source pages. Optional automatic OCR may rasterize scanned pages; this can lose interactive features, vector content or signatures.

No AI is required to read, correct, position or export your own text.

DOCUMENT PREVIEW

Page viewer

— / —
▤

Your document appears here

Open a PDF to preview each page and compare OCR results.

No PDF selected
OCR OUTPUT

Review and correct text

Not processed
☷

Extract existing text or start a manual transcription for a scanned page. OCR is optional.

EXPORT

Save your results

Not ready

Extract existing text or manually transcribe a scan. Build a PDF only when searchable text and its placement are valid.

Review JSON saves corrections and box geometry but NOT your original PDF. Reopen it before importing a review. PDF building copies unselected source pages, adds manually positioned text invisibly, and checks extracted output text. Existing PDF text edits only affect TXT/JSON: changing the underlying source text requires a separate native PDF editing tool. Mixed scripts require verified font support.
HOW IT WORKS

Manual-first PDF text recovery

01

Extract existing text

Open and preview PDFs locally. No-AI mode copies embedded text, without OCR model downloads.

02

Manually correct scans

Type missing words and position searchable text boxes over corresponding scanned regions, or opt into local Tesseract recognition.

03

Verify before export

Check corrected text and its placement, then build a locally assembled searchable PDF. Save TXT/JSON for unsupported scripts and layouts.

Will OCR keep tables, diagrams and formatting?

Page appearance is preserved as a rendered image. Searchable text reflects recognition results, which may contain incorrect reading order, especially for multi-column documents, handwriting, tables or technical symbols. It does not recreate an editable table or Word layout.

Are my PDFs sent anywhere?

Document processing is local to your browser. The app downloads open-source JavaScript and OCR language data from a CDN on demand; your PDF is not uploaded to that CDN. You can self-host those dependencies for a fully offline deployment.

Can it read every language and encrypted PDF?

Optional OCR languages use free Tesseract traineddata. Recognition accuracy depends on the scan and model; mixed scripts may need several languages selected. Some password-protected, signed, malformed or permission-restricted PDFs cannot be processed or reassembled.

Using OCR PDF Studio

Open a PDF and extract existing text without AI. Manually transcribe image-only pages or opt into OCR. Review the recognized text and output verification status before exporting. No AI is the default. OCR mode is optional; Smart OCR skips text-rich pages, while Force OCR can recognize selected pages.

OCR pages are rasterized with a searchable layer; unprocessed/skipped pages are copied when supported. This does not reconstruct editable tables, vector originals, tags, links or signatures on OCR pages. Text order and complex scripts need review. PDF utilities are lazily loaded; optional OCR language data downloads only after explicit consent. Encryption/permissions can prevent assembly. Output/download checks are supplied safeguards, not a guarantee of OCR accuracy or accessibility; no partial PDF is offered after failure/cancel.

References: PDF.js · Tesseract.js · pdf-lib

Add a searchable text layer to selected PDF pages

Import a PDF, choose pages and an OCR mode, review the supplied checks, and export a searchable PDF when processing completes. Without AI, scanned pages require manually entered, aligned boxes. Smart/Force OCR remain user-activated and may rasterize OCR pages.

Example workflow

  1. Open a supported PDF and select the pages that need searchable text.
  2. Choose Smart or Force, run OCR and review page/text checks in the result summary.
  3. Reopen the exported PDF and verify recognition and page appearance before sharing or archiving it.

Authored example: Scan a two-page printed memo, select only the page containing a clearly printed paragraph, and compare the recognized text with the scan. Treat the text check as a structural check, not proof that every word is correct.

Limits and processing: PDF.js, Tesseract.js, OCR core/language assets and pdf-lib load from configured CDNs. OCR pages become raster pages with a searchable text layer; skipped pages retain source structures only where copying is supported. Output checks do not establish OCR accuracy or accessibility. Encrypted/permission-limited files and resource limits can fail; failure or cancellation does not offer a partial PDF.

OCR PDF Studio questions

Does OCR make every page accessible?

No. A searchable text layer is not an accessibility certification; review recognition and document structure separately.

Can I get a partial PDF if OCR fails?

No partial PDF is offered after failure or cancellation. Reopen and verify a completed export before relying on it.

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