OCR PDF Online — Add Searchable Text to Scans

Turn image-only PDFs into searchable documents. Copy text, find keywords, and pass accessibility checks without re-scanning.

Make scans searchable

Image-only PDFs look fine to humans but contain no selectable text. RatPDF runs Tesseract OCR server-side and adds an invisible text layer so you can search, copy, and highlight content in any PDF viewer.

Scan quality tips

1. Scan at 300 DPI, black-and-white or grayscale for text forms
2. Straighten pages — skew hurts recognition accuracy
3. For multi-language docs, OCR works best when one dominant language is present

After OCR, convert to Word with PDF to Word or extract plain text with PDF to Text.

Security & retention

Files are uploaded over HTTPS, processed on our servers, and stored only long enough for you to download the result. Temporary copies are removed automatically; we do not use your documents to train models or build marketing lists.

Free vs Pro

• Free — 3 conversions per tool per day, 200 MB per file.
• Pro — unlimited use, 4 GB uploads, priority conversion queue. See plans.