Every PDF tool you need,
running inside your browser.
Compress, convert, merge, sign, redact and read scans. Choose a tool and open a file — it is processed on this device and never uploaded.
Why this is different
No document is uploaded. This can be independently verified.
Comparable services transmit your file to a server and undertake to delete it subsequently. PaperJET has no server to which a document could be sent: the tools are compiled to WebAssembly and execute within this browser tab, on your own device. Nothing is queued, nothing is capped, and the work continues if you go offline after the page has loaded.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Are documents uploaded to a server?
No. Every tool executes within your own browser using WebAssembly. The file is read from local storage by the browser and is not transmitted, so no server holds a copy of it. This may be verified by disconnecting from the network once the page has loaded; the tools continue to function normally.
Is PaperJET free to use?
Yes. All tools are provided free of charge, with no account required, no watermark applied and no file size limit.
Can a scanned PDF be processed?
Yes. The OCR tool reads the text from a scan and can return the same scan with an invisible text layer applied, so that the document appears unchanged while becoming searchable and available for copying.
Can a PDF be converted to Word or Excel?
Yes, where the PDF already contains text. Where the file is a scan, the OCR tool should be used instead; the interface will indicate which case applies.
Is there a file size limit?
No. As processing is performed on your own device rather than on a server, the constraint is the available memory of that device rather than an upload cap.
OCR a scanned PDF
Reads the text in a scanned document so it can be searched, selected and copied. Recognition runs on your own device, which is unusual for OCR: the documents that need it are typically the ones that matter most — bills of lading, invoices, land records, certificates — and those are the last documents that should be sent to someone else's server for processing.
How to oCR a scanned PDF
- Open the scanned PDF or photograph.
- Choose the language of the document. English, Hindi and Marathi are available, singly or in combination.
- Run the recognition. The first run downloads the engine and the language model — around 18 MB — after which it is held on this device.
- Save either a searchable PDF, or the recognised words as an editable document.
The default output is the scan exactly as it was, with the recognised text laid over it as an invisible layer. The page still looks like the scan because it is the scan — but it can now be searched and copied from. A misread word therefore costs you a failed search rather than a corrupted document, which is why this is the right choice for anything official.
A separate model is trained for each script, so the language is asked for rather than guessed. Devanagari documents are recognised properly instead of being reduced to nonsense, and mixed English–Hindi paperwork can be read with both models at once.
Clean printed scans at around 300 DPI come out very well. Faint carbon copies, heavy stamps and handwriting are harder, and no OCR engine is exempt from that. Where accuracy matters, the searchable PDF keeps the original image so nothing is lost to a bad reading.
Questions about OCR
Is my scan uploaded for OCR?
No. Recognition runs in this browser tab using WebAssembly. The engine and the language model are downloaded to your device on first use, and the document itself never leaves it. Most OCR services work the other way round.
Which languages can be recognised?
English, Hindi and Marathi, individually or in combination — English with Hindi, English with Marathi, or Hindi with Marathi. Each script has its own trained model, which is why the language is selected rather than detected.
Why is the first run slow?
The recognition engine and the language model are about 18 MB and are fetched once, then kept on the device. Subsequent documents in the same language start immediately.
What is the difference between a searchable PDF and extracted text?
A searchable PDF is the original scan with an invisible text layer over it — it looks unchanged but can be searched. Extracted text is the recognised words as an editable Word, Excel or text document, with the original page image discarded. For official documents the searchable PDF is almost always the right choice.
Can handwriting be recognised?
Not reliably. The engine is trained on printed text. Neat printed handwriting sometimes reads acceptably; cursive generally does not.