How to make a scanned Hindi PDF searchable
Updated
A scanned PDF is a set of pictures of pages, so you can't search it or copy its text. OCR reads the text in those pictures and adds it to the PDF as an invisible layer. The pages look exactly as before, but now Ctrl+F finds words and you can copy them.
Open OCR PDFMake the PDF searchable
- 1Open OCR PDF and sign in.
- 2Choose the scanned PDF.
- 3Pick the languages on its pages, up to three, such as Hindi and English.
- 4Start it, then download the same PDF, now searchable.
Which languages work
Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam, Punjabi (Gurmukhi) and Assamese, as well as English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese (Simplified).
Pick only the languages that are really on the pages. Each extra language makes reading slower and can make it less accurate.
Getting good results
OCR reads clear scans best. A straight, well-lit scan at 300 DPI works far better than a blurry photo. Pages scanned sideways or upside down are turned the right way up for you.
Pages that already have text are left alone, so a PDF that is only partly scanned works too.
OCR PDF is one of the tools that take the most server time. A free account can use it a few times a month, and paid plans include more.
Tools in this guide
- OCR PDFMake a scanned PDF searchable, so its text can be found, selected and copied.Paid tool
- Compress PDFMake a PDF smaller, to email it or to save space.Free, runs on our servers
- Split PDFTake pages out of a PDF, or save every page as its own file.Files stay on your device
- PDF to WordTurn a PDF into a Word document you can edit.Paid tool