How to OCR-Extract Text from a Scanned PDF — Free, 100+ Languages

A scanned report holds data your spreadsheet wants. A photo of a contract has clauses you need to quote. Copy-paste from the scan doesn't work — there's nothing to copy. OCR-extract-text reads the image with Tesseract and returns the words.

When you actually need Extract Text (OCR)

Scanned reports being fed to data pipelines, photos of contracts being archived, scanned business cards becoming contacts, historical newspaper scans being analysed.

How to extract text (ocr), step by step

Open the tool

Go to convertpdfgo.com/ocr-extract-text. No account, no email, no installation.

Drop the file in

Drag the file onto the upload area or click to pick. Files up to 30 MB go through without a queue. Encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3), encrypted at rest, deleted within one hour.

Configure

Pick the OCR language; the output is plain text.

Download

Open in any reader, paste anywhere, feed to scripts.

Common problems and how to avoid them

Output has typos in odd places

Tesseract isn't perfect. Pass through a spell-checker for human content; accept it for archival or search.

Wrong language detected

Specify the language code explicitly. uzb for Uzbek Latin, uzb_cyrl for Cyrillic, rus for Russian, eng for English.

Empty output

The scan is too low quality or the language model doesn't match the script. Retry with a higher-DPI scan or different language.

A short word on privacy

Three things to know. One: files go over TLS 1.3. Two: files are encrypted at rest while we process them, then deleted automatically within one hour. Three: we don't look at your files or train on them.

How we compare to other free tools

Feature	convertpdfgo	Smallpdf	iLovePDF
Sign-up	None	After 2/day	Optional
Watermark	None	None	None
Auto-delete	1 hour	Vague	2 hours

Frequently asked questions

Different from regular Extract Text?

Yes — regular Extract Text only works on PDFs with a text layer. This one OCRs scanned PDFs first, then extracts.

How accurate is it?

Tesseract OCR — 95-99% on clean scans, much lower on handwriting or low-DPI files.

Are my files private?

Files are encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest, then auto-deleted within one hour.

Will it work on protected PDFs?

Not directly — unlock the PDF first with our Unlock PDF tool if you know the password.

Is there a usage limit?

No. Free, no daily cap, no sign-up wall, no watermark.

How long does it take?

About 5-30 seconds depending on file size and OCR complexity. Multi-page scans take longer.

What's the file size limit?

30 MB as a guest, 50 MB when signed in.

What to do next

Now you can OCR PDF, Extract Text, or Image to Text. All free.

Or browse our full list of 49 free PDF tools.