Scanned PDF to text
Updated Files never leave your device
Get the words out of a scanned PDF as plain, editable text. Ordinary PDF-to-text tools return nothing for scans; this one reads the page images with OCR.
How to convert a scanned PDF to text
- Choose the scanned PDF.
- Select the language(s) of the document.
- Enter a page range if you only need part of it, then click Extract text.
- Copy the text or download it as a .txt file. Turn on “Make a searchable PDF” if you also want the PDF version.
Is my PDF scanned or digital?
Try to select a word in your PDF viewer. If you can highlight individual words, the page has real text — PDF to text extracts it instantly and perfectly. If dragging draws a box or selects the whole page, it's a scan and needs OCR. This tool handles both: with “Skip pages that already have text” on, digital pages are copied directly and only scanned pages go through OCR.
Expected accuracy
| Source | Typical character accuracy |
|---|---|
| Clean laser-printed scan, 300 DPI | 98–99%+ |
| Office copier / fax-quality scan | 90–97% |
| Phone photo of a page | 80–95% (depends on light and angle) |
| Typewriter, old books, faded print | 75–95% |
| Handwriting | Not supported |
Figures are typical ranges for Tesseract's LSTM engine on printed Latin-script text; each page shows its own confidence score so you know where to proofread.
Keeping the layout
OCR output is plain text: paragraphs are kept, but columns are read one after another and tables come out row by row. Bold, italics and fonts are not preserved.
Private by design
PDF Fox renders your pages with pdf.js and recognizes text with Tesseract, both running in your browser. Your document is never uploaded; the only download is the open-source language model for the languages you select, which your browser caches.
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Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Pages are rendered and recognized inside your browser (pdf.js + Tesseract in WebAssembly). The only download is the OCR language model, once per language; your document never leaves your device.
How long does it take?
Roughly 3–10 seconds per page on a laptop at 300 DPI, longer on phones. Use the page range to OCR only the pages you need, or Fast (200 DPI) for clean, large print.
Why does PDF to text give me an empty result?
Because the PDF is a scan: it contains images of text, not characters. OCR recognizes the letters in those images.
Can I convert a scanned PDF to Word?
Copy the extracted text into Word or Google Docs. Formatting such as columns and tables isn't kept, but the words are fully editable.
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