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Text recognition (OCR)

Turn scans into searchable PDFs and copy text from paper with OCR.

All · 10 Scanning · 7 PDF editing · 3Text recognition (OCR) · 1App comparisons · 3

Hands hold an iPhone over a printed page on a light desk while a thin cyan light line crosses the paper

Text recognition (OCR)Aug 31, 2026· 9 min read

How to make a PDF searchable: OCR, text layers and your iPhone

Search finds nothing in your scanned PDF because the page is an image. Here is what OCR does, how to test a file, and three ways to add the text layer.