How to OCR a scanned PDF offline for free

Open the scan in Gold PDF and press Recognize text. Gold PDF reads each page on your computer, adds an invisible text layer, and you can then search, copy and edit the text.

How to do it in 3 steps

Open the scan. Gold PDF tells you when a page has no text layer.
Recognize text. Ctrl+Shift+O processes the pages locally; English and Hebrew work offline.
Save. The saved PDF is searchable and can be edited with Edit text.

Why Gold PDF

Private — nothing is uploaded.
Free — no page limits.
30 languages supported on demand (downloaded once).
Edit after OCR — fix lines directly.

Questions

Which languages work offline?

English and Hebrew are built in; other languages download a small model the first time.

Why is OCR sometimes wrong?

Low-resolution scans and handwriting reduce accuracy; use a 300 dpi scan when possible.

Does OCR change how the page looks?

No. The text layer is invisible.

Gold PDF — the free PDF editor for Windows

Edit text, redact for real, OCR scans, fill forms, sign and protect. Offline, no account, no watermark.

Download free