fyllyoFree, with no account
Text recognition is one of Fyllyo’s free tools, and it doesn’t expire.
Make a scanned PDF searchable. Free, on your Mac.
A scan is a picture of text: you can’t search it or copy from it. Fyllyo recognizes the text with Apple’s own engine, right on your Mac, and saves it in the PDF, so the page looks the same but every word can be found.
Free, with no account · Nothing uploaded · Apple silicon, macOS 13 or later
How to do it in Fyllyo
Open the scanned PDF
If its first pages are scans, Fyllyo offers to recognize the text.
Choose Recognize text
Use the button in the bar above the page, or Tools, then Recognize text in scanned pages.
Search, select and copy
When it’s done, search finds the words and you can select and copy them.
Save
The text is saved in the PDF, so it stays searchable in any app, on any computer.
Why Fyllyo
Nothing is uploaded
Online OCR sites need your file. Fyllyo uses Apple’s text recognition on your Mac, and your scan never leaves it.
The page looks the same
Fyllyo adds an invisible text layer behind the scan; the image itself isn’t changed.
Questions
Can Preview make a scanned PDF searchable?
Preview can select text in some images with Live Text, but it doesn’t save searchable text into the PDF. Fyllyo saves the recognized text in the file, so it works everywhere.
Is OCR in Fyllyo really free?
Yes. Recognizing text in scans is free, with no account, and it doesn’t expire.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Text recognition runs entirely on your Mac, so it works without an internet connection.
More you can do with your PDFs
Reading, filling in, drawn signatures, page tools, combining, splitting, text recognition and passwords are free. Fyllyo Paid adds filling forms from your documents with AI, redaction, certificate signing, text editing, smaller PDFs and XFA forms, for $99 once.