What Types of Scanned Documents Can You OCR?
OCR works on any document where the text was printed (typed, not handwritten). Here are the most common types of scanned documents people run OCR on:
- 1.Contracts and agreements. Scanned legal documents need to be searchable so you can find specific clauses, dates, or names without reading 30 pages manually.
- 2.Receipts and invoices. Expense tracking and tax preparation require extracting amounts, dates, and vendor names from scanned receipts.
- 3.Old reports and academic papers. Researchers and businesses digitize archived documents so they can be searched and referenced efficiently.
- 4.Government and ID documents. Passports, driver licenses, and government forms often need to be scanned and made searchable for applications and compliance.
- 5.Medical records. Healthcare providers scan patient documents that need to be indexed and searchable within electronic health record systems.
How to OCR a Scanned Document (Step by Step)
Scan or photograph your document
Use a flatbed scanner (set to 300 DPI for best results) or your phone camera. Save the scan as a PDF. If you used your phone, run the file through Phone Scan Cleanup first to improve contrast and straighten the image.
Upload to OmnisPDF's OCR Scanner
Open the OCR Scanner tool (Pro feature) and upload your scanned PDF. Select the language of the document — this is important for accuracy, especially for non-English documents.
Download and verify your searchable PDF
Download the processed file. Open it and try Ctrl+F to search for a word you know is in the document. If the text is found, OCR worked correctly. The visual appearance stays identical to your original scan.
Preparing Your Scan for Better OCR Results
The quality of your scan directly affects OCR accuracy. Here are the most impactful things you can do before running OCR:
- ✓ Scan at 300 DPI or higher. Lower resolutions produce blurry characters that OCR struggles to recognize. 300 DPI is the sweet spot for text documents.
- ✓ Use good lighting. Uneven shadows across the page cause OCR errors. Flatbed scanners give the most consistent lighting. For phone scans, use natural light and avoid shadows.
- ✓ Straighten the document. Skewed or rotated text reduces accuracy. Use Rotate PDF to fix orientation before OCR, or use Phone Scan Cleanup for automatic straightening.
- ✓ Increase contrast. Faded text on a yellowed page is hard for OCR. If the original is faded, increase the contrast in your scanner settings or use image editing before scanning.
- ✓ Remove background noise. Stains, coffee marks, stamps overlapping text, and wrinkled pages all reduce OCR accuracy. Scan the cleanest copy available.
For more detailed guidance, read our full OCR Accuracy Tips guide.
What to Do After Running OCR
Convert to Word or Excel
Now that your document has a text layer, converting to other formats gives much better results. Use PDF to Word for editable documents or PDF to Excel for tabular data like invoices and financial statements.
Extract Plain Text
Need just the raw text without formatting? Use PDF to TXT to extract all text content from your searchable PDF. This is useful for data analysis, translation, or feeding text into other software.
Compress the Result
OCR processing can sometimes increase file size slightly because of the added text layer. If you need to email the document or upload it to a portal with size limits, use Compress PDF to reduce the file size.
Protect Sensitive Documents
If your scanned document contains sensitive information (contracts, financial records, ID copies), consider adding password protection after OCR using Protect PDF. You can also redact sensitive sections with PDF Redaction (Business plan).
Scanning Documents with Your Phone
You do not need a flatbed scanner to digitize documents. Most modern phones take photos good enough for OCR — especially if you follow a few guidelines:
- ✓ Hold your phone directly above the document (not at an angle) to minimize distortion.
- ✓ Use natural, even lighting. Avoid flash, which creates hotspots and glare.
- ✓ Place the document on a dark, contrasting surface so the edges are clearly defined.
- ✓ Use your phone's built-in document scanner (Notes on iPhone, Google Drive on Android) for automatic cropping and perspective correction.
- ✓ Run the result through OmnisPDF's Phone Scan Cleanup tool before OCR to automatically improve contrast, remove shadows, and straighten the image.
For more on using OCR on mobile devices, see our guide on OCR a PDF on Your Phone.