Online Tool Store
Searchable PDF Maker
Check whether a PDF already has a selectable text layer, page by page. Runs entirely in your browser.
🔒 This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
How it works
- Upload a PDF.
- Every page's text layer is extracted and counted.
- See whether the PDF is already searchable, or needs OCR (not yet available).
FAQ
How does the check work?
It genuinely extracts each page's text layer using the same PDF text-extraction engine as the site's PDF viewer tool — if real, selectable text comes back, the PDF is already searchable. This isn't a guess or a simulation.
What if my PDF has no text layer?
That means it's a scanned or image-only PDF — making it searchable needs OCR (recognizing text from the page images), which requires a dedicated OCR engine that isn't wired up in this frontend-only release yet.
Why check before running OCR anyway?
Many PDFs already have a text layer (exported from a word processor, or already OCR'd) — checking first avoids wasted OCR processing time on a file that's already searchable.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No — the check runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
How we compare
| Feature | Online Tool Store | Manual "select text" test | Full OCR software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-page breakdown, whole document at once | ✓ | Check one page at a time by hand | ✓ |
| No install | ✓ | ✓ | Requires OCR software |
For a quick check before deciding whether a scanned document needs OCR at all, this saves time over opening the file and testing text-select on every page.