Make scanned PDFs searchable
Scanned contracts, invoices or letters are often just images: you cannot search, copy or highlight anything. PDFnord’s text recognition (OCR) adds an invisible text layer to the page. The document looks exactly as before – but is now searchable and copyable.
How OCR works in PDFnord
- Open the scanned PDF and choose Tools › Text recognition.
- Select pages and language (German, English and other languages installed in Windows).
- Start – PDFnord recognises pages at high resolution and shows the progress. You can cancel at any time.
Benefits
- Full-text search in scanned documents.
- Copy text into other applications.
- Highlight and comment just like a digitally created PDF.
- Local and offline: recognition uses the OCR engine built into Windows – no uploads, no per-page fees.
Tips for good results
Scan at 300 dpi or more, as straight as possible and with good contrast. Pages that already contain text can be skipped automatically.