What does "searchable PDF" mean?
A scanned document is just a picture of text - a computer can't tell where the words are, so you can't select, search or copy anything from it. This tool reads the text on every page with OCR (optical character recognition) and adds it back into the PDF as an invisible layer placed exactly over the matching words in the scan. The page still looks exactly like the original scan, but now you can select, search (Ctrl/Cmd+F) and copy its text like any normal PDF.
How accurate is it?
Accuracy depends on scan quality - a clean, straight, high-resolution scan of printed text will come out close to perfect; a blurry photo, tiny handwriting, or a crooked scan will have more mistakes. Currently this tool recognizes English text.
Is this safe?
Your file is uploaded only to run the OCR and build the result - both the original upload and the output PDF are removed from our server automatically afterward.