Chinese OCR for PDF
Chinese OCR for scanned PDFs: the pages keep their look, and the Simplified or Traditional Chinese text becomes searchable and copyable.
Turn Chinese scans into searchable documents
A scanned Chinese contract, invoice or textbook is just a set of images until its text is recognized. This tool reads every page in your browser with PaddleOCR, which knows both Simplified and Traditional characters as well as English, and adds what it reads as an invisible layer. You can then search for a name or an amount, copy a clause into a translator, or index the document.
What works well
- Scanned contracts, invoices, statements and official documents in Simplified Chinese.
- Traditional Chinese documents from Taiwan and Hong Kong.
- Pages that mix Chinese with English, amounts and dates.
- Horizontal text. Pages set in vertical columns are not read yet.
For the best results
- 1Scan at 300 DPI: dense characters need more resolution than Latin letters.
- 2Add English as a third language when the document has whole English paragraphs.
- 3After OCR, use PDF to Text or PDF to Word to get the Chinese text out of the document.
Questions about Chinese OCR for PDF
How do I OCR a Chinese PDF?+
Choose the PDF, keep Chinese selected and click Make PDF searchable. Download the result and search or copy the Chinese text in any PDF reader.
Simplified or Traditional?+
Both are selected on this page and read by the same model, so mixed documents work too.
Does the PDF look different afterwards?+
No. The original pages stay as they are; the text is added invisibly behind them.
Is my PDF uploaded?+
No. Recognition runs in your browser; the model downloads once (about 20 MB) and your PDF stays on your device.