Edit · 3 min read
What Is OCR (and When to Use It)
Extract text from scanned PDF pages to a TXT file, then proofread the result.
Quick steps
- Open the OCR tool. Head to pdfoncall.com/ocr.
- Add a scanned PDF. Drop the file — it stays on your device.
- Run OCR. PDFOnCall recognizes the text on every page.
- Download. Download a plain-text TXT file. The original PDF remains unchanged.
What OCR does
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads text out of images. A scanned page is a photo — you can't search or copy it. OCR converts those pixels into real text.
When you need it
- Old contracts you scanned to PDF years ago.
- Receipts and forms you photographed on your phone.
- Book chapters or research papers you need to quote.
Languages
This tool recognizes English and has no language picker. Clean printed scans work best; proofread all recognized text.
Then what?
- Open the downloaded TXT file in Word, proofread it, then save as DOCX.
- Keep your original PDF alongside the extracted text.