OCR — Extract Text from PDF
Extract readable text from scanned PDFs and image-based documents. Supports 16+ languages. Output as plain text, searchable PDF, or Word document.
About OCR — Extract Text from PDF
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) converts scanned documents, photographed pages, and image-based PDFs into machine-readable text. When you receive a PDF that is essentially a photograph of a page — a scanned contract, a photographed receipt, a faxed form — you cannot select, search, or copy the text. Romow's OCR tool reads the visual content and extracts the text, making the document fully usable.
The tool supports 16+ languages including English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Vietnamese, and Thai. Select your document's language before processing for best accuracy.
Three output formats are available. Plain Text (.txt) gives you the raw extracted text — ideal for pasting into other applications. Word Document (.docx) preserves the text in an editable format. Searchable PDF creates a new PDF with an invisible text layer over the original images — the pages look identical but the text is now selectable and searchable with Ctrl+F.
Accuracy depends on scan quality. Clean, straight, high-contrast scans produce excellent results. For best results, scan at 300 DPI or higher.
Frequently Asked Questions
English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Vietnamese, and Thai. Contact sales@romow.com if you need a specific language not listed.
For clean scans at 300 DPI or higher, accuracy is typically 97–99%. Accuracy drops for blurry images, unusual fonts, or handwriting.
OCR is primarily for printed text. Neat block handwriting may be recognised, but accuracy is significantly lower than for printed text.
Yes. Romow OCRs every page of the document in one job. Output is combined into a single file.
One file per job. For bulk OCR, contact sales@romow.com.
Searchable PDF keeps the original page appearance but adds a hidden text layer so you can use Ctrl+F to find content. Plain text gives you only the extracted text with no visual layout.