OCR PDF Online — Extract Text & Tables to Excel Free
Turn scanned PDFs and JPG images into selectable text — or convert a scanned table straight into Excel, cells and columns intact. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Drag & drop your PDF or images here
or click to browse — files stay on your device
Files never leave your deviceHow to OCR a scanned PDF or image
- Drop your scanned PDF (up to 40 pages) or JPG/PNG images into the box above.
- Choose the document's language and pick Plain text or Table → Excel mode, then click Extract.
- Review the result — copy the text, or copy the table straight into Excel / download it as .xlsx.
About this free ocr pdf tool
A scanned PDF is just photos of pages — you can't search it, copy from it, or edit it. This tool renders every page to a high-resolution image and runs the open-source Tesseract recognition engine over each one, right in your browser, rebuilding the document as real text you can copy, search and reuse. A live progress bar keeps you posted page by page, and the result opens in an editable box so you can fix any misread words before copying. You can also drop in JPG or PNG photos directly — each image is treated as one page.
New: Table → Excel mode detects the rows and columns in a scanned table and rebuilds them as a grid you can copy straight into Excel — every value lands in its own cell, layout preserved — or download as a real .xlsx file. It works best on clean tables with straight, clearly separated columns; complex or borderless tables may need a quick manual tidy-up after pasting.
The honest version: OCR reads shapes, it doesn't understand language, so garbage in means garbage out. Crisp, straight, well-lit scans of printed text come out nearly perfect; tilted phone photos, shadows, faint dot-matrix print and cursive handwriting will disappoint. If your PDF already has selectable text, skip OCR entirely and use the instant PDF to Text tool. And like every PDFPax tool, nothing is uploaded — the recognition happens on your own device.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the OCR?
On clean scans — straight pages, sharp printed text, good contrast — accuracy is typically very high. Blurry phone photos, skewed pages, faint print, decorative fonts and handwriting all reduce accuracy. Always proofread the result before using it somewhere important.
Which languages are supported?
English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and Chinese (Simplified). Pick the document's language before starting for the best results; mixed-language pages work best with the dominant language selected.
My PDF already has selectable text. Do I need OCR?
No — if you can already select and copy the text, it is a real text PDF, not a scan. Use the free PDF to Text tool instead; it is instant and perfectly accurate. OCR is only for scanned/image-only PDFs.
How do I convert a scanned table to Excel?
Drop the scanned PDF or JPG into the box above and choose Table → Excel mode. The tool detects rows and columns from the scan and shows a grid preview. Click “Copy table” and paste into Excel — each value lands in its own cell with the layout preserved — or download a ready-made .xlsx file. It works best on clean tables with clear, straight columns; always proofread the result.