Drop your scanned PDF into fwip’s OCR tool. It reads the image, recognises the text, and produces a searchable PDF — you can select, copy, and search the text. Runs on your device using on-device AI. Your document never leaves your machine.
How to do it
- Open fwip’s OCR tool.
- Drop your scanned PDF in.
- Select the language if it’s not English.
- Hit Process.
- Download your searchable PDF.
The visual appearance is unchanged. But now the text is selectable, searchable, and copyable.
Why this matters
A scanned PDF is just a picture of text. You can’t search it, select it, copy it, or find anything with Ctrl+F. If you’ve ever received a scanned contract and needed to find a clause, or a scanned receipt and needed to pull a number, you know the frustration.
OCR (optical character recognition) reads the image and creates a text layer underneath. The document looks the same, but the text is now live. Search, select, copy — all work.
Frequently asked questions
What is OCR? Optical Character Recognition. It’s AI that reads images of text and converts them into actual digital text. Think of it as teaching a computer to read a photo of a page.
Does OCR work on handwritten text? Partially. Neat, printed-style handwriting can be recognised. Messy cursive is unreliable. Typed or printed text works best.
What languages does fwip’s OCR support? English and major European languages. The tool uses on-device AI models — check the tool page for the current language list.
Will OCR get every word right? Accuracy depends on scan quality. Clean, high-resolution scans of printed text get 95–99% accuracy. Low-res, skewed, or faded scans will have more errors. Always proofread important documents after OCR.
Can I OCR a photo of a document instead of a scan? Yes. If you photograph a document with your phone, it works — though a flat, well-lit photo gives better results than an angled shot.