OCR Online
Process images in your browser — your files never leave your device.
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What is the OCR Online?
This OCR tool converts scanned documents — invoices, forms, book pages, printed contracts — into editable, searchable text, entirely in your browser. Drop in one or more scanned pages, choose the document's language from 13 supported options, and each page is processed through an OCR (optical character recognition) engine that reads printed characters and returns plain text with an estimated confidence score. It is built for batches: scan a multi-page document as separate image files, drop them all in together, and process the whole set in one run instead of one page at a time.
Recognition runs on Tesseract.js, an open-source OCR engine compiled to WebAssembly so the whole process happens on your device rather than on a server. Choosing the correct language before you scan matters: the language model determines which character shapes and word patterns the engine expects, and it downloads once per language — a few megabytes — the first time you use it, then runs locally for every document afterward. Because everything runs locally, this is a reasonable option for contracts, forms and other documents you would rather not upload to a third-party server just to extract the text.
Why use a free ocr online?
Batch multi-page documents in one run
Drop in every scanned page from a document together and process the whole batch at once, with each page returning its own text and confidence score.
13-language document support
Choose the document's actual language — English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic or Hindi — for accurate character recognition instead of a one-size-fits-all default.
Confidence score per page
Every processed page reports an estimated confidence percentage, so you know at a glance which pages need a manual review before you trust the text.
Documents never leave your device
Scanned pages are processed locally by a WebAssembly OCR engine — nothing is uploaded to a server, which matters for contracts, forms and other sensitive paperwork.
Download each result as a text file
Save the extracted text from any page directly as a .txt file, or copy it straight to your clipboard for pasting into another document.
How do you use the OCR Online?
- 1
Scan or photograph your document pages
Export each page as a separate image file (JPG or PNG). For best results, scan at a reasonable resolution with the page flat and well-lit.
- 2
Drop in all the pages together
Drag and drop the full set of page images at once — the tool processes them as a batch rather than requiring one upload per page.
- 3
Select the document's language
Choose the language the document is actually written in before you run recognition. This determines which character-recognition model is used for every page in the batch.
- 4
Run recognition and review confidence scores
Each page processes in turn with a progress indicator. Once done, check the confidence score on each — lower scores are worth a manual proofread before you rely on the text.
- 5
Copy or download each page's text
Copy the text from any page individually, or download it as a .txt file to assemble into a full document elsewhere.
How accurate is it?
Each page returns an estimated confidence percentage from the OCR engine, reflecting how certain it is about the characters it recognised on that specific page — this is not an independently audited accuracy rate, and it can vary page to page within the same document depending on scan quality, page condition and font.
- Flat, evenly lit, high-resolution scans of printed text produce the most reliable results — the closer your source image is to a clean scanner output, the better.
- Skewed or curved pages (common with photos of open books) reduce accuracy, since the recognition engine expects roughly horizontal lines of text.
- Selecting the wrong language for a document produces poor results even on a perfectly clean scan, since the model is matching against the wrong expected character set and word patterns.
- Handwritten annotations, signatures, stamps and handwriting mixed in with printed text are unreliable — the engine is built for printed and typed characters, not handwriting.
- Always proofread before relying on the output for anything official — figures, dates and names are exactly the kind of short, high-stakes text where a single misread character is easy to miss and costly to get wrong.
What should you know before using it?
Supported document languages and their Tesseract language codes:
| Language | Code used for recognition |
|---|---|
| English | eng |
| Spanish | spa |
| French | fra |
| German | deu |
| Portuguese | por |
| Italian | ita |
| Dutch | nld |
| Russian | rus |
| Simplified Chinese | chi_sim |
| Japanese | jpn |
| Korean | kor |
| Arabic | ara |
| Hindi | hin |
Which tools relate to the ocr online?
The ocr online is one of 31 image tools on this site. These are the ones most often used alongside it — either because they handle the next step in the same job, or because they answer a question this tool raises.
Image Text Extractor
The same OCR engine, oriented toward single screenshots and casual photos rather than multi-page document batches — use it for quoting a screenshot or a photographed sign.
PDF to Text
If your document already exists as a text-based PDF rather than a scanned image, extract its text directly instead — it will be faster and more accurate than converting to images first.
Compress PDF
Once you have assembled OCR results into a document, compress the resulting PDF before sharing or archiving it.
Spell Checker
Run extracted text through a spelling pass to catch common OCR misreads that resemble real typos before you use the text in another document.
When should you use a ocr online?
Because the ocr online runs entirely in your browser, it suits work you would not want to hand to a third-party server — client files, unpublished drafts, anything under an NDA. These are the situations people reach for it in most often.
Digitising scanned contracts and forms
Turn a stack of scanned pages into searchable, editable text without retyping — locally, without uploading a signed contract to a third-party server.
Converting printed invoices to text
Extract line items and totals from a photographed or scanned invoice as a starting point for manual data entry, then verify figures against the original.
Making scanned book or report pages searchable
Batch-process a set of scanned pages into plain text you can search, quote or archive alongside the original scans.
Multi-language document processing
Handle documents in a specific language accurately by selecting the correct language model, rather than relying on a generic English-only recognition pass.
Frequently asked questions
How is OCR Online different from scanning with a phone app?
Can I process a multi-page document at once?
Why does language selection matter for OCR?
Are my scanned documents uploaded to a server?
What does the confidence score mean?
Can it read handwritten forms or signatures?
Do I need to install anything to use it?
What image formats can I scan from?
Is the ocr online safe to use?
This tool runs entirely inside your browser. Your text, files and settings are processed on your own device and are never uploaded to our servers — there is nothing for us to store, log or leak. You can confirm it yourself: open your browser DevTools, switch to the Network tab, and use the tool. You will not see an upload request. It also means the tool keeps working if your connection drops mid-task.
Where do these figures come from?
Every method, threshold and standard this page relies on, with a link to the document that defines it. Check them — a tool that will not show its sources is asking you to take its word for it.
- 1Tesseract.js — Pure JavaScript OCR for 100+ languages
Tesseract.js project documentation
Supports: The description of the OCR engine as an open-source, WebAssembly-compiled recognition library that runs locally in the browser, and the per-language model download behavior.
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