Definition
What is OCR, and when is a scan not searchable?
OCR (optical character recognition) turns a picture of text, such as a scan or photo, into characters a computer can search or copy. A scan is not searchable when its pages are only images and no text layer has been added. Recognition can be wrong, so a searchable file is not proof that every word was read correctly.
What EditPDF AI does
EditPDF AI PDF OCR renders each page in the browser and sends the page image through an AI OCR route. You can review the text or download a searchable PDF. A text layer may not include every non-Latin script. Each processed page is metered. Signed-in Free accounts can use up to 5 metered AI actions per UTC day; Pro removes that daily cap.