How to make a scanned PDF searchable with OCR (Hindi and English)

By Learning Media Publication · Updated 5 November 2026

A scanned PDF is a stack of pictures. You can read it, but you can't search it for a word, copy a paragraph or let a screen reader read it aloud. OCR (optical character recognition) fixes that by recognising the letters in the pictures and adding a hidden text layer to the PDF.

What OCR is good for

• Finding a topic in a 300-page scanned book with Ctrl+F.
• Copying a quote or a question from a scanned paper instead of retyping it.
• Making old office files searchable.
• Getting editable text from printed Hindi material.

Step by step

1. Open OCR PDF and select the scanned PDF.
2. Choose the language of the document: English, Hindi, or both for bilingual pages.
3. Start OCR. Each page is read on your device, so a long book takes a while. Keep the tab open.
4. Download the searchable PDF. It looks the same as before, but now you can search and select text.

To get the text into Word instead of keeping it in the PDF, use Hindi OCR, which gives you editable Unicode text.

How to get better results

• Scan straight. Tilted pages are harder to read. Use Rotate PDF first if pages are sideways or upside down.
• Use enough resolution. About 300 dpi works well. Very small, blurry text gives poor results whatever tool you use.
• Avoid shadows and curves near the book's spine. Press the book flat or scan one page at a time.
• Choose the right language. Reading Hindi pages with English OCR produces gibberish.

Hindi OCR: what to expect

Hindi is harder for OCR than English because of matras, half letters and conjuncts. Clean printed text in common fonts is usually recognised well. Old books, decorative fonts and handwriting give more mistakes. Always proofread names, numbers and dates before using the text for anything important.