Convert a scanned PDF to a searchable PDF
Keep every page as it looks and add text that search, copy and screen readers can use.
France · Scheduled cleanup: 60 min after job creation · Free to use
Formats & limits
Formats & limits
- Accepted formats
- Result
| On a computer | On a phone or tablet | In the cloud | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max file size | 200 MB | 50 MB | 100 MB |
| Max pages | 50 | 10 | 200 |
| Max image size | 30 MP | 16 MP | No limit |
Scheduled cleanup: 60 min after job creation · Usually about 20 s
Limits on your device depend on its memory. Larger files may still work; the tool warns you first.
How it works
- 01 Drop the PDF you want to make searchable.
- 02 Choose the language of the text.
- 03 Press Recognize text and wait while each page is processed.
- 04 Download the file and try Ctrl+F on a word from the scan.
About this tool
A PDF straight from a scanner or a phone app stores each page as a photo, so your file manager, email search and document archive cannot see a single word inside it. Converting it to a searchable PDF fixes that. Hushdesk recognizes the Russian and English text and writes it into the file as a hidden layer aligned with the words on the page. Nothing visible changes and the images are not re-encoded, so the size stays close to the original. Pages that are already searchable are detected and skipped. The conversion runs on your device (beta), and a cloud mode is there for large archives.
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Found by desktop search
Windows Search, Spotlight and most document systems index the hidden text, so old scans finally show up in search results.
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Same pages, similar size
The original images are kept byte for byte; the text layer adds only a few kilobytes per page.
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Skips what is already done
Born-digital pages and pages that were OCRed before are detected and left alone, so text is never doubled.
Questions and answers
What is a searchable PDF?
A PDF where every scanned page carries an invisible layer of recognized text. You still see the original scan, but software can find, select and copy the words.
Will the searchable PDF be bigger than the original?
In device mode only slightly: the images are not touched and the text layer adds a few kilobytes per page. In the cloud mode, straightening tilted pages redraws them and makes the file several times larger.
Can I make a mixed PDF searchable when only some pages are scans?
Yes. Pages that already contain text are recognized as such and skipped; only the image-only pages go through OCR.
Are line breaks kept when I copy from a searchable PDF?
Mostly. Copying follows the recognized lines. Tables and multi-column pages may need tidying after pasting, because the hidden layer has no table structure.
Is a searchable PDF the same as PDF/A?
No. PDF/A is a standard for long-term archiving. This tool adds a text layer but does not convert the file to PDF/A.