filehugger.comThe exact steps
- Read every page with OCR
One .txt file containing the recognized text, page by page.
Why this chain
If you cannot select text in a PDF, the pages are photographs and plain text extraction returns nothing. OCR is the step that puts readable text back. The engine downloads to your browser on first use — the scan itself never leaves the tab.
Doing it without the recipe
This one is a single operation and the recipe does not pretend otherwise: it runs the same engine as OCR PDF, which is the page to use if you want the options and the per-page progress. The recipe is here because "scanned PDF" is what people search for and "OCR" is the answer they have not thought of yet.
When this chain is the right one
Use it when you open a PDF, try to select a sentence and nothing highlights. That means the pages are photographs, and every text-extraction tool on this site will return an empty file until the words are recognised. If text does highlight, skip OCR entirely — PDF to Text or PDF to Word will give you a cleaner, more accurate result in a fraction of the time, because they read the text that is already there instead of guessing at pictures of it.
Honest limits
Output is plain text, not a searchable PDF with an invisible text layer: layout, columns and images are not reproduced. Accuracy tracks scan quality — 300 DPI, straight and high-contrast reads far better than a tilted phone photo — and you have to pick the right language — the English model reads Turkish as "Sozlesme 1gdir", the Turkish one reads it correctly. Proofread numbers, names and tables.