Convert your scanned PDF into searchable and selectable PDF documents. Copy, extract, and edit text.
Your files remain safe & private and are automatically deleted after 2 hours.
Quick Video Instructions in 4 Steps
Tutorial
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, it is completely free to use. No registration is required, there are no hidden costs, and PDFs are generated without watermarks. For more information, visit: ilovepdf.com/help/security
Your PDF files remain protected throughout the entire processing. They are used exclusively to create the desired output file (e.g., PDF file), and all data is always transmitted encrypted.
If you do not delete them manually, the system automatically and permanently deletes your files within a maximum of 2 hours. This eliminates any third-party access. There is no permanent storage. For more information, visit: ilovepdf.com/help/legal
Ensure good scan quality: clear images, minimal shadows, aligned pages. The higher the contrast between text and background, the more accurate the results. Blurred or tilted photos can be recognized but may cause errors. The tool automatically corrects many errors but not all.
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) identifies text in scanned documents or images and converts it into machine-readable text. iLovePDF analyzes each page image and adds an invisible text layer over it. This way, the appearance remains the same, but the content becomes searchable, copyable, and indexable.
The tool recognizes text in over 70 languages, including German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and many others. Quality is especially good on clear scans with good lighting.
No. The layout, images, and design of your PDF remain unchanged. The OCR function only adds an invisible text layer. The original maintains the identical appearance, but the content becomes fully searchable. For further questions, you can contact support anytime. ilovepdf.com/contact
OCR is more complex than standard PDF edits, as each page is analyzed, segmented, corrected, and the text is recognized character by character. Quality assurance, language recognition, and text reconstruction increase the processing time. Despite these processes, the tool works extremely fast for OCR standards.
Yes. All pages are processed one by one and merged into a single searchable PDF. Large documents can also be fully analyzed by OCR. Premium users benefit from higher page and size limits.
Due to the additional text layer and image data optimization, the file size increases slightly. This is normal for all OCR processes. If the file becomes too large, you can compress it directly afterwards (ilovepdf.com/pdf_compress) without losing recognition quality.