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Free tools · Documents

OCR PDF

The scan you have, with an invisible text layer underneath. Looks identical, now searchable and selectable.

Free · no sign-up · no watermark · up to 20 MB · uploads deleted after 24 hours, results after 7 days.

How to ocr pdf

  1. Drop the scanned PDF.
  2. Pick the language.
  3. Press OCR, watch the pages count up, download.

What happens to your file

Every page is read and the recognised words are placed as invisible text exactly over the printed ones. The page image is untouched, so what you see is your scan; what the reader searches is the text.

Progress is reported page by page — a 40-page scan takes a couple of minutes, and the page tells you where it is rather than spinning.

Up to about 12 pages per job on this free page; longer scans are split first with Split PDF, or run through the API.

Questions

Will the PDF look different?

No. The text layer is invisible; only search, select and copy start working.

How accurate is it?

On a clean 300 DPI scan of printed text, a handful of errors per page at most. Faxes, faint copies and photos of pages do worse. Pick the right language.

Can I OCR a photo of a document?

Yes — drop the JPG or HEIC; it becomes a one-page searchable PDF.

Do this in code

curl -X POST https://api.fylane.dev/v1/jobs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FYLANE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "file_id": "<file id>",
    "operation": "ocr.searchable-pdf",
    "options": {
      "language": "eng"
    }
  }'

The same operation, ocr.searchable-pdf — A scan becomes the same document with an invisible, searchable text layer. Upload first with the quickstart; every option is on the operations page. 500 free credits a month, then $5 per thousand.