Optical character recognition reads text out of an image or scan and turns it into real, selectable text, so a scanned PDF becomes searchable and copyable.

Can I make a photo of a document editable?

Yes. Turn the photo into a clean PDF first, run OCR to add the text layer, then convert to Word if you need to edit the wording.

How to convert a scanned PDF to editable text (OCR)

A scanned document is really just a picture of text. You cannot select, search or copy from it until you run OCR (optical character recognition), which reads the image and adds a real text layer.

This guide shows how to make a scan searchable and then, if you need to, turn it into an editable document.

Add a text layer with OCR

01Open the OCR PDF tool and add your scanned file.
02Run OCR. DailyDone reads the pages and adds a selectable, searchable text layer.
03Save. The PDF now lets you find and copy text.

Make a scan searchable

Turn it into an editable document

If you need to change the wording, convert the searchable PDF to Word and edit it there. OCR first gives a much cleaner conversion than converting a raw scan.

Convert to Word

Frequently asked questions

What is OCR?: Optical character recognition reads text out of an image or scan and turns it into real, selectable text, so a scanned PDF becomes searchable and copyable.
Can I make a photo of a document editable?: Yes. Turn the photo into a clean PDF first, run OCR to add the text layer, then convert to Word if you need to edit the wording.

Tools used in this guide

OCR PDFMake a scanned PDF or page photos searchable.PDF to WordConvert a PDF into an editable Word doc.PDF to TextExtract the text from any PDF.