Make a PDF searchable
Add an invisible text layer to scanned pages so search, copy and indexing work — without changing how the pages look.
OCR runs in your browser with the open-source Tesseract engine. The language file (2–15 MB) is downloaded once from a content network and cached; your document is never uploaded. Clean, straight scans at 200–300 dpi give the best results.
Drop your PDF files here or click to browse
Stays on your device — nothing is uploaded
Select several files to process them together
How do I make a PDF searchable for free?
Open PDFkitt's PDF to Searchable PDF tool (pdfkitt.com/searchable-pdf/): choose the PDF, pick the language, run, then download. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark, and it runs entirely in your browser — the file is never uploaded to a server.
- Price
- Free — no trial, no paid tier, no watermark
- Account
- Not needed
- File upload
- None — processed on your device, in the browser
- Input
- PDF files (several at once)
- Limits
- No daily quota and no file-count limit
- Works on
- Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone, iPad and Android, in any modern browser
Updated · by the PDFkitt team
Document management systems, desktop search and “find in page” all rely on a PDF having text. Scanners produce image-only files; this tool adds the missing text layer through OCR, keeping the scanned image exactly as it is. Pages that already contain text are skipped, so mixed documents are handled correctly.
The whole process runs in your browser. Output is a normal PDF that any viewer can search.
How to make a PDF searchable
- Choose the PDF Drop it on the upload card.
- Pick the language And the resolution.
- Run Only image pages are recognised.
- Download Open it and press Ctrl+F to test.
Why use PDFkitt to PDF to Searchable PDF?
The file is processed inside your browser tab. Disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it still works.
No signup, no email, no daily quota, no page limit, no watermark. Use it as often as you like.
Phone, tablet or desktop, in Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox. Nothing to install.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference from OCR PDF?
None in the engine — this page always produces a searchable PDF and skips pages that already have text.
Is my scan uploaded for OCR?
No. The recognition engine runs inside your browser tab. Only the language data file is downloaded, and it is cached for next time.
How accurate is it?
Very good on clean printed text (typically 95–99%); lower on faxes, skewed photos and small fonts. Rotate and crop first if needed.