OCR that stays on your device: turn scans into editable documents — and even edit the scan itself
Most OCR tools upload your scan to a server and hand you back a wall of plain text. Here's how on-device OCR extracts the text from a scanned PDF or photo, lets you fix it, and can even rewrite the text directly on the original scan — logos, stamps and layout intact.
A scanned document is a strange object: it looks like text, but to your computer it’s just a photo. You can’t select a sentence, search for a name, or fix a typo. OCR (optical character recognition) is the bridge back — and most online OCR tools get two things wrong: they make you upload the document to someone else’s server, and they give you back bare text with none of the document left around it.
Our OCR tool fixes both. Recognition runs entirely in your browser — the scan never leaves your device — and the output isn’t just text: you can get back a Word file, an Excel sheet, a searchable PDF, or the most interesting option of all, the same scan with the text replaced in place.
What it reads
Drop in a scanned PDF (multi-page is fine) or a photo — PNG, JPG or WebP. The tool supports:
- Latin-script languages — French, English and friends. Very accurate on clean printed scans.
- Arabic-script languages — Arabic, Persian, Urdu. Full right-to-left handling, with the letters correctly joined.
- Auto mode — not sure, or mixed content? Leave the script on Auto and the tool figures it out per page.
Every recognized line comes back with its position and its confidence, and the text opens in an editor so you can fix any misreads before exporting. Your corrections flow into every output format.
The headline: edit the scan itself
Classic OCR gives you the text out of the document. Ours can also put your text back into it.
Choose PDF (replace text in place) and the tool erases the original printed text from the scan — reconstructing the paper background behind it — then redraws your (possibly edited) text in a matching font, size and ink color, exactly where the old text was. Logos, stamps, signatures, tables and the general look of the page are preserved. Fix a wrong date on a scanned form, correct a name, and the result still looks like the original document — not like a screenshot with a white rectangle pasted over it.
Two cleanup qualities are available: Fast for quick jobs, and High quality for sharper background reconstruction on textured or colored paper (it loads a larger engine and takes a bit longer).
Six ways to export
| Format | What you get |
|---|---|
| PDF — replace in place | The original scan with the text erased and redrawn (editable before export). |
| Searchable PDF | The untouched scan with an invisible text layer — it looks identical, but now Ctrl-F works and text is selectable. |
| Word (.docx) | The recognized text as a real, editable document. |
| Excel (.xlsx) | Line content laid out in a spreadsheet. |
| PowerPoint (.pptx) | Text positioned on slides, mirroring the page. |
| Text (.txt) | Just the words, for pasting anywhere. |
Private by design
This matters more for scans than for almost anything else — the documents people OCR are contracts, IDs, medical results, invoices. With this tool, nothing is uploaded. The recognition models are downloaded to your browser once and run on your device; the image, the text and the exports never touch a server. It even keeps working offline once the page has loaded.
How to use it
- Open the OCR tool and drop in a scanned PDF or an image.
- Pick the script — Latin, Arabic, or leave it on Auto.
- Press Extract text. Each page is read on your device.
- Review the result in the editor and fix anything the recognizer got wrong.
- Choose an output format and download.
Honest edges
On clear printed scans, accuracy is very high for Latin scripts and good for Arabic. Harder cases: low-resolution or skewed photos, handwriting, and decorative calligraphy (nasta’liq styles in particular). That’s exactly why the editor is in the loop — skim the result, fix the odd word, and export.
Try it on a real scan — OCR. Since nothing leaves your browser, there’s no risk in testing it on a confidential document.