Free Scanned PDF to Text Converter

Scanned contracts, faxed agreements, and photographed receipts all share the same problem: the text is trapped inside an image. This tool uses Claude vision to read scanned PDFs and images page by page, extracting all visible text in reading order. It detects the layout type (single column, multi-column, table-heavy, form, mixed) and adjusts its reading strategy accordingly. Each page gets a confidence score based on estimated character error rate. Text that the AI cannot read clearly is marked with [?] so you know which parts to verify against the original. Works best with clearly printed documents. Heavily degraded or handwritten text may have lower accuracy.

Paralegals and records managers use this when they receive scanned contracts, court filings, or legacy documents that need to be searchable. Instead of using desktop OCR software that requires installation and configuration, you upload the file and get clean text output in seconds. Archivists use it to convert old paper records into text for keyword search.

Desktop OCR tools like Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY FineReader produce good results but require a license ($20-60/month) and local installation. Online OCR services exist but many have file size limits or quality issues with complex layouts. This tool handles up to 5 pages per document. Handwriting recognition is limited. Heavily faded or damaged documents may produce incomplete results. For longer documents, use Eudoxic Pro which supports up to 200 pages.

Common use cases

• Legal discovery: convert scanned case files and deposition transcripts into searchable text for keyword review
• Records digitization: extract text from scanned corporate archives for migration to a document management system
• Academic research: convert scanned journal articles or book chapters into text for citation and note-taking

One scanned document took 30 seconds. A folder of 50 takes one upload. Create a free Eudoxic workspace to upload all files and run OCR across the entire batch.