PDF & Image to Text: OCR for Scanned PDFs, Photos & Screenshots

What is PDF & Image to Text?

PDF & Image to Text extracts clean text from PDFs, scanned documents, photos and screenshots. Paste a file link, a Google Drive or Dropbox share link, or upload a file. It reads digital pages exactly and uses OCR only where it is needed.

Try it now: the example below reads a two-page PDF that mixes a digital page and a scanned page.

What can this PDF to text tool do?

• Smart per page. Digital PDF pages already contain their text, so it is read exactly, with no OCR errors. Only scanned pages, photos and screenshots go through OCR.
• Mixed documents just work. A PDF with typed pages and scanned pages is handled page by page.
• You pay less for digital pages. They cost a fraction of an OCR page. No subscription.
• 16 languages for OCR: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian.
• Private by design. Files are processed inside your run. Nothing is sent to an outside AI service.
• Fast on digital PDFs. A digital PDF takes a second or two. OCR takes a few seconds per page, depending on how dense the page is.

Because it runs on Apify, you also get:

• Scheduling: process new documents on a regular basis.
• API access: start runs and read results from your own code.
• Integrations: send results to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets and more.
• Monitoring: get alerted when a run fails or returns less than expected.
• Exports: download results as JSON, CSV or Excel.

What can you provide?

Input	Example
PDF link	https://example.com/report.pdf
Image link (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WEBP, BMP, GIF)	https://example.com/receipt.jpg
Google Drive share link	https://drive.google.com/file/d/FILE_ID/view
Dropbox share link	https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/.../contract.pdf?rlkey=...
File upload	Use the Or upload a file field

Share links must be set to "anyone with the link can view". You can mix several links in one run.

How to extract text from a PDF or image

1. Get a link to your PDF or image: a direct file URL, or a Google Drive or Dropbox link shared with "anyone with the link". Or use Or upload a file.
2. Paste the link into PDF or image URLs. Add as many as you like.
3. If your documents are scanned and not in English, pick their languages in Languages for OCR.
4. Click Start. When the run finishes, open the Output tab and download the text as JSON, CSV or Excel.

How much does it cost to extract text from a PDF?

You pay per page. Digital pages cost $0.001 on every plan. The price of an OCR page depends on your Apify Store discount tier:

Store discount tier	Price per OCR page
Free plan	$0.004
Bronze	$0.0036
Silver	$0.0032
Gold and above	$0.0028

At the Bronze price:

Document	Cost
100 digital pages	$0.10
100 scanned pages	$0.36
1,000 scanned pages	$3.60

Set Maximum pages per document or the run's maximum charge to cap spending. The Actor stops before exceeding either and marks the document with "truncated": true.

Input example

{
    "urls": [
        "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/kyR7mGkrVQ6H3xQe8/records/sample-text-and-scanned.pdf?signature=1oxjqoBQ1rS8GvxN9TuBV"
    ],
    "languages": [
        "en"
    ]
}

Options

Option	Default	What it does
Languages for OCR	English	Pick the languages printed in your scans. Fewer languages means faster, more accurate OCR.
When to use OCR	Automatic	Automatic runs OCR only on pages without a text layer. Always runs OCR on every page. Never reads text layers only.
Keep the page layout	Off	Keeps columns and tables aligned with spaces, for digital PDF pages.
Maximum pages per document	500	Caps how much of a long document is processed.

Output example

A real result for the input above, with the text shortened. One dataset item per document:

{
    "inputUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/kyR7mGkrVQ6H3xQe8/records/sample-text-and-scanned.pdf?signature=1oxjqoBQ1rS8GvxN9TuBV",
    "status": "ok",
    "fileName": "sample-text-and-scanned.pdf",
    "fileType": "pdf",
    "pageCount": 2,
    "textPages": 1,
    "ocrPages": 1,
    "truncated": false,
    "characters": 1164,
    "text": "Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort President John F. Kennedy,...",
    "pages": [
        {
            "page": 1,
            "method": "text",
            "text": "Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort President..."
        },
        {
            "page": 2,
            "method": "ocr",
            "text": "Invoice No. 2026-0417  The growth of our science and education will..."
        }
    ]
}

method tells you how each page was read: text for the PDF's own text layer, ocr for recognised text. Files that cannot be processed produce an item with "status": "error" and an error message explaining why.

Use cases

• AI workflows: feed contracts, reports, invoices and research papers to an LLM or a search index (RAG).
• Archives: digitise scanned archives, receipts and letters.
• Screenshots and photos: pull text out of images of documents.
• Batch conversion: convert a folder of PDFs to text through the API.

Tips for better OCR

• Pick only the languages printed in your scans. Fewer languages means faster, more accurate OCR.
• Use sharp, straight scans. Blurry or skewed photos cause most mistakes.
• Use the Always mode for pages that mix typed text and a scanned image.

FAQ

How do I extract text from a PDF?

Paste a link to the PDF or upload it, then start the run. You get the full text of the document and the text of each page.

How do I convert a scanned PDF to text?

The same way. The Actor notices that a page has no text of its own and runs OCR on it automatically. Pick the document's language in Languages for OCR for the best result.

How do I get text from an image, photo or screenshot?

Paste a link to the image (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, WEBP, BMP or GIF) or upload it. Images always go through OCR.

What is the difference between a digital page and an OCR page?

A digital page was created on a computer, and its text can be read from the file exactly. An OCR page is a picture of text, such as a scan or a photo, and its text has to be recognised, which is slower and can contain mistakes. The method field tells you which one each page was.

How accurate is the OCR?

Clean, straight scans of printed text come out very accurately. Small print, blurry photos, skewed pages, stamps and handwriting cause mistakes. Digital pages are always exact.

How long does it take and how much does it cost?

A 15-page digital PDF takes a few seconds and costs $0.015. OCR takes about 4 to 5 seconds for a dense page and costs $0.0036 per page at the Bronze price.

Does it extract tables?

Tables come out as lines of text. Turn on Keep the page layout to keep the columns aligned with spaces. The Actor does not return tables as structured rows and columns.

Can I use it from my own code, Make, Zapier or n8n?

Yes. Call it through the Apify API (see the examples below), or connect it with Apify's integrations for Make, Zapier and n8n. Every run returns the same JSON.

What happens to my files?

They are downloaded and read inside your run, then deleted when it ends. Nothing is sent to an outside service, and the extracted text is stored only in your own Apify account.

Limits

• Printed text only. Handwriting is not recognised reliably.
• OCR quality depends on the scan: sharp, straight pages at normal size work best; blurry or skewed photos give errors.
• In Automatic mode, a page that has some typed text and a scanned image is read from its text layer only. Use Always for such pages.
• Tables come out as text lines, not as structured rows and columns.
• Password-protected PDFs cannot be read. Remove the password first.
• Asian and right-to-left scripts are not supported for OCR yet.

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Run it from the API

With cURL:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/spokentext~pdf-image-to-text-ocr/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "urls": ["https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/kyR7mGkrVQ6H3xQe8/records/sample-text-and-scanned.pdf?signature=1oxjqoBQ1rS8GvxN9TuBV"], "languages": ["en"] }'

With Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("spokentext/pdf-image-to-text-ocr").call(run_input={"urls": ["https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/kyR7mGkrVQ6H3xQe8/records/sample-text-and-scanned.pdf?signature=1oxjqoBQ1rS8GvxN9TuBV"], "languages": ["en"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["fileName"], item["characters"])

This Actor is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google or Dropbox; their names only describe the share links it accepts.

Feedback

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