Scanned PDF to Word, with OCR
Turn a scan, a photo of a page or a print-to-PDF file into a Word document you can edit. Pages without text are read with OCR.
or drop it anywhere on this page
.pdf files up to 100 MB, several at once
Choose a PDF to convert, or drag PDF files anywhere on this page. Only .pdf files up to 100 MB are accepted. Progress for each file is listed under Your files.
- No sign-up
- Nothing added to your file
- Scanned pages read with OCR
How a scan becomes text
A scanned PDF is only pictures of pages, so there is no text to copy out. The converter spots pages like that and reads them with text recognition (OCR), so you get words you can edit instead of a picture of words. It also catches PDFs where a print driver turned the text into outlines. The reading is done by Tesseract, the open source OCR engine, and the result goes through the same layout step as any other page, so headings, alignment, indents and spacing are kept.
For the cleanest text
- Scan at 300 dpi or more. A photo of a page works too, if the page is flat, sharp and evenly lit.
- Pick the language the page is written in. For pages that mix English with Odia or Hindi, pick English + Odia or English + Hindi.
- Pages that already have text you can select are copied, not read, so they come out exactly as written.
- A table of contents with dotted leaders can leave stray characters behind. Delete them in Word.
- Password-protected PDFs cannot be converted yet. Save a copy without the password first.
Languages
English, Odia and Hindi are built in, and English + Odia or English + Hindi reads pages that mix two of them. Pick the language before you convert.
Odia PDF to WordWhat OCR brings back, and what it cannot yet
Comes back
- The words, as text you can edit and search
- Headings, alignment, indents and spacing
- Tables, where the PDF still has their ruling lines
- Text that a print driver turned into outlines
Not yet
- Bold and italic, which a scan does not tell apart
- Tables on a plain scan, which has no ruling lines to read
- Password-protected PDFs
Questions about scanned PDFs
Can it convert a scanned PDF to Word?
Yes. Pages without selectable text are recognised automatically, including files where a print driver turned the text into outlines.
Which languages can it read in scanned PDFs?
English, Odia and Hindi. English + Odia and English + Hindi handle pages that mix two of them.
Why are there strange characters in my Word file?
Usually a scanned page was read in the wrong language, or the dotted leaders of a table of contents were read as letters. Pick the language the page is written in and convert it again, and delete any leftover dots in Word. If the PDF was not a scan and its text already copies out as strange letters (older Hindi and Odia fonts such as Kruti Dev and Akruti do this), turn on Read every page as a scan.
How long does a conversion take?
A PDF with selectable text takes seconds. A scanned page takes a second or two to read, and several pages are read at once, so a long scan takes a few minutes.
Convert your PDF to Word now
Free and without a sign-up. Choose a file, pick its language if it is a scan, and the Word document downloads when it is done.