OCR and scanned documents
A scan is a photograph of a contract. These turn it back into words.
Free · No account needed · Your file is never stored
This is the category everything else depends on. A scanned PDF looks like a document and behaves like a picture: you cannot search it, copy a clause out of it, convert it to Word, or have it reviewed — because as far as any software is concerned, there is no text in the file at all.
The choice between the three tools here is simply what you want back. If you want the words, take the text. If you want the document to keep working — searchable, convertible, reviewable — take the searchable PDF, which writes the text back into the file underneath the image so the pages still look exactly as they did.
What no OCR can fix is a bad scan. Three hundred DPI, a flat page and no shadow beat every setting in every tool. And handwriting is not reliably recognised anywhere — which is fortunate, because a handwritten amendment is the last part of a contract worth letting software guess at.
When you need this
- A signed paper contract was scanned and now nobody can search it.
- Someone sent a photo of the clause and you need to quote it exactly.
- The AI review says there is no text in your document.
- An archive of scanned agreements has to become findable.
OCR and scanned documents — questions
What is the difference between OCR PDF and Make PDF Searchable? +
OCR PDF hands you the text and stops — you read it, and the PDF you still hold is as unsearchable as it was. Make PDF Searchable hands back the document with the text written into it, so everything downstream can read it too.
Which languages are supported? +
English, Russian and Uzbek, plus a combined English-and-Russian mode for mixed documents. Choose the language the document is written in — a Cyrillic contract read as English comes back as nonsense.
How do I get the best results from a scan? +
Scan at 300 DPI, flatten the page, and avoid shadows and folds. That matters more than any software setting. Keep colour for pages with ink signatures; black and white is fine and much smaller for the rest.
Can it read handwriting? +
Not reliably, and that is the honest answer everywhere. Type a handwritten amendment out, or have a person read it.
Now find out what the document says
Every tool here changes the shape of a document. None of them tells you what it commits you to — that is what the review is for, and it is free for three documents a day with no account.
Analyze a contract