Scanned PDF to Searchable PDF
Keep the original pages. Add text you can search and copy.
Drop an image to read it
PDF — up to 3 MB. Your file is read on our servers in Frankfurt and deleted within the hour.
VisionParse turns a scanned PDF into a searchable PDF free in your browser, with no account required.
The original page image is left exactly as it was and an invisible text layer is placed underneath it, so the document looks identical but can be searched and copied. One page took 2.83 seconds and grew the file from 16.6 KB to 26.4 KB in our 2026-08-01 measurement.
What this tool does, in numbers.
- SPEED
VisionParse added a searchable text layer to a scanned page in 2.83 seconds.
- LIMIT
The output file grew from 16.6 KB to 26.4 KB, an increase of 59 percent.
- ACCURACY
Text in the output PDF was selectable and matched the source document exactly.
- ACCESS
The searchable PDF tool requires no account, no email address and no payment card.
- LANGUAGES
VisionParse recognises 161 languages when building the text layer.
- RETENTION
VisionParse deletes free-tool PDFs one hour after conversion.
Where the 2.83 s comes from.
Every figure on this page traces to a dated run on hardware we name. Nothing here is a vendor estimate.
Measured 2026-08-01
- Claim
- A one-page scanned PDF became searchable in 2.83 s, growing from 16.6 KB to 26.4 KB.
- Method
- VisionParse standard recognition tier, single-threaded. Full methodology.
- Sample
- Single-page scanned PDF built from the synthetic invoice, processed through the production searchable-PDF path, then verified by extracting the text layer back out.
- Measured
2026-08-01on Contabo Cloud VPS 8 — 8 vCPU AMD EPYC, 24 GB RAM, Ubuntu 24.04.4- Limitations
- File growth depends on how much text a page contains; a dense page adds a larger text layer. Page images are re-encoded, so an already heavily-compressed scan may change size differently. A single synthetic document per variant is a small sample and is not a substitute for a corpus. These figures describe format behaviour, not general accuracy. A 500-document corpus run is scheduled and will supersede them.
- Contact
- VisionParse@senithu.lk
What this tool gets wrong
The file gets bigger, not smaller. Adding a text layer grew our test file by 59 percent, from 16.6 KB to 26.4 KB. If you need a smaller PDF, compress it after making it searchable rather than expecting this step to shrink it.
The page image is not altered. The text layer sits invisibly beneath the original page, so signatures, stamps and layout look exactly as they did. Nothing is redrawn or re-typeset.
Arabic-Indic numerals come back wrong. VisionParse reads Arabic script cleanly on the free tier, but ١٢٣ returned as 1#|. Numeric Arabic documents should use the AI extraction tier instead.
Three steps, no account.
Drop your scanned PDF
Drag the PDF onto the workbench, or choose one. Nothing leaves your device until you drop it.
Text is placed underneath
Each page is recognised and an invisible text layer is aligned to the words in the original image.
Download the searchable PDF
The document looks the same but is now searchable and copyable. The file is deleted within the hour.
What this tool accepts.
| Property | Free tool |
|---|---|
| Input format | PDF, scanned |
| Output | PDF with an invisible text layer |
| Page images | Preserved, not redrawn |
| Typical time | 2.83 s per page |
| Typical size change | Plus 59% on a sparse page |
| Maximum file size | 3 MB |
| Rate limit | 5 files per hour, per IP address |
| Languages | 161 |
| File retention | Deleted 1 hour after conversion |
| Processing location | Frankfurt, Germany |
When to use the API instead.
This page converts one file now. To convert files from your own software, the same engine runs over HTTP from Starter upward.
# same engine, from your code curl -X POST https://api.visionparse.app/v1/ocr \ -H "x-api-key: $VISIONPARSE_KEY" \ -F "file=@image.jpg" → 202 { "jobId": "c0df8e2c…" }
Use the API when
You convert more than a handful of files, convert on a schedule, or need results inside another system. Batch, webhooks and bounding boxes are API-only.
Frequently asked
Will my PDF still look the same?
Yes. The original page image is preserved and the recognised text is placed invisibly underneath it, so signatures, stamps and layout are untouched. Only searchability is added.
Why did my file get bigger?
A text layer is additional data. Our one-page test grew from 16.6 KB to 26.4 KB, an increase of 59 percent. Compress the PDF afterwards if size matters.
How long does it take?
One page took 2.83 seconds in our 2026-08-01 measurement. That is slower than plain text extraction because the output PDF has to be rebuilt around the original image.
Can I just get the text instead?
Use the PDF to text tool, which is faster and returns plain text. Use this tool when you need to keep the document itself.
Do you keep my PDF?
Free-tool files are deleted one hour after conversion. Account uploads are deleted after 30 days, and no customer file is ever used to train models.