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How to make a scanned PDF searchable (OCR in English, French or Arabic)

You press Ctrl+F in a scanned contract and nothing is found, or you try to copy a paragraph and select an entire page as one image. That is because a scan has no text in it, only a picture of text. OCR (optical character recognition) reads the picture and adds an invisible text layer behind it. The page looks exactly the same, but you can now search, select and copy.

Open the tool: OCR PDF

Step by step

  1. Open the OCR PDF tool on Convert Magician.
  2. Drop your scanned PDF. It stays on your device; recognition runs in your browser.
  3. Choose the language of the document: English, French, Arabic, or several at once for mixed pages.
  4. Start recognition and download the searchable PDF, or export the recognised text as a plain file.

Good to know

  • Straight, sharp scans at normal resolution give very good results. Blurry phone photos, handwriting and decorative fonts lower accuracy.
  • If your pages are crooked phone photos, run them through Scan to PDF first to straighten and clean them.
  • Recognition takes a few seconds per page on a normal computer, longer on older phones. Large files are best done on a computer.

Questions

Will OCR change how my PDF looks?

No. The text layer is invisible and sits behind the original image, so the page looks identical.

Does it work with Arabic?

Yes. Select Arabic as the language. For pages that mix Arabic and English or French, select both.

Is my document uploaded for recognition?

No. The OCR engine runs inside your browser, so confidential scans never leave your device.

Open the tool: OCR PDF

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