A scanned contract, a photographed receipt, an old report that exists only on paper — none of these have selectable text. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) reads the letter shapes in the image and rebuilds real, editable text from them.
How browser-based OCR works
Our OCR to Word tool renders each page, runs the recognition engine locally in your browser (nothing is uploaded), and rebuilds the document with structure: large text becomes headings, line positions become paragraphs, and centered or right-aligned text keeps its alignment. You get both an editable Word file and a searchable PDF.
Getting the best accuracy
- Scan at 300 DPI or photograph the page straight-on in good light.
- Avoid shadows, folds, and skewed angles — recognition quality follows image quality.
- Proofread names, numbers, and dates; OCR is excellent on clean print but never perfect.
What OCR cannot do
Handwriting recognition is a different problem and is not supported. Extremely low-resolution photos, decorative fonts, and text over busy backgrounds also reduce accuracy. If your PDF already has selectable text (try highlighting it in a viewer), skip OCR entirely and use the regular PDF to Word converter — it is faster and exact. For background on the technology itself, see how OCR actually works, and for privacy questions, our guide to safe online converters.