PDF OCR. Turn a scan into editable text
Detect text on a scanned page and recover blocks that you can correct. Editing and export are free and unlimited. Free adds an “Edited with PDFScene.com” watermark; Pro exports without it.
Steps
- Open PDF Scene and import your document.
- Choose Make text editable, let OCR analyze the page, and review the detected blocks.
- Review every change in the preview.
- Open Export to generate the result with Pro.
A scanned PDF is not necessarily a text PDF
A PDF made by a word processor contains selectable characters. A photocopy or photo inside a PDF often contains pixels only. OCR estimates characters and positions instead of recovering a perfect document structure.
PDF Scene masks the source area and places editable blocks approximately where the text was found. It supports visual correction, not a promise of identical layout reconstruction.
Prepare a page for better recognition
Start with a straight, sufficiently contrasted page without shadows. A tilted photo, dense table, or very small type creates more manual corrections.
Test one page before processing a long document. Check numbers, decimals, names, dates, and words next to lines or stamps first.
- Compare recognized text with the original image.
- Correct short blocks before long paragraphs.
- Do not treat unreviewed recognition as evidence.
What local processing changes
OCR resources may be downloaded by the browser, but the PDF binary is not sent to PDF Scene for analysis. Once resources are available, recognition is calculated on the device.
This avoids a server queue, but makes results more dependent on device memory, processor capacity, and scan quality.
Frequently asked questions
Can I prepare the document for free?
Yes, with no account. Editing and export stay local and free. Free adds a watermark; €2.99 = 1 clean export; Pro = unlimited without watermark.
Do my files leave my device?
No. Document processing runs locally in the browser.
Is OCR always accurate?
Quality depends on the scan, language, and layout. Always review amounts, proper names, and reference numbers.