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FastOCR

iLovePDF OCR: what it does, and a free iLovePDF alternative

Short answer

iLovePDF OCR is the OCR PDF tool at ilovepdf.com. You upload a PDF, select the document's languages and get back a selectable, searchable PDF. Its pricing table includes OCR PDF on the free Basic plan, which lists "limited document processing". FastOCR (we make it) is a free alternative that also reads photos and screenshots, detects the language itself, and returns the text, Word and Markdown.

By the FastOCR team · Updated 4 November 2026 · Accuracy test run 31 October 2026

We make FastOCR. Accuracy figures come from our own test of each tool we scored, ours included, on the same scans; other facts link to each tool's own pages. How we tested

Try it here

Drop your file here

PDF, PNG, JPG, WebP, BMP, HEIC

PDF up to 1 GB · images up to 20 MB

Tips for a clear photo
  • Lay the page flat.
  • Use even light, with no shadows.
  • Turn off the flash to avoid glare.
  • Fill the frame with the page.

Verdict

Pick FastOCR if

  • Your file is a photo, screenshot or scanned image. iLovePDF's OCR page asks for a PDF file; FastOCR takes images and PDFs.
  • You want the recognized text on screen to check and copy, plus Word (.docx) and Markdown, from one upload.
  • You are not sure of the language, or a page mixes scripts. FastOCR detects it; iLovePDF has you select the languages.
  • You want accuracy figures you can check: we ran FastOCR on scanned book pages in several scripts and publish the scores for the six shown.

Pick iLovePDF if

  • You already merge, compress and convert PDFs in iLovePDF and want OCR inside the same toolbox.
  • You want uploads gone within two hours; its FAQ says files are kept for a maximum of 2 hours.
  • You would rather pay for one PDF suite: Premium is listed at US$5 a month billed annually, or US$9 billed monthly.

FastOCR and iLovePDF side by side

What you uploadFastOCRPhotos, screenshots, scanned images and PDFsiLovePDFPDF files: the OCR page says "Select PDF file"Source
What you get backFastOCRRaw text on screen, a searchable PDF, Word (.docx) and MarkdowniLovePDFA "selectable and searchable PDF"Source
Choosing the languageFastOCRDetected automatically, mixed pages included; nothing to selectiLovePDFYou select the document's languages; the page says this increases accuracy and does not mention auto-detectionSource
Languages listedFastOCR100+ languagesiLovePDFA long menu that includes Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and HebrewSource
Account to startFastOCRImages: no account. PDFs: a free account.iLovePDFNot statedSource
Free plan, as advertisedFastOCRImages are free without signing up, up to a small daily number; a free account has no daily image cap. PDF pages: see pricing.iLovePDFOCR PDF is included on the free Basic plan, which lists "Limited document processing"Source
Watermark on free outputFastOCRNo watermark on any free outputiLovePDFNot statedSource
Paid planFastOCRMonthly plans, or one-time page packs with no subscriptioniLovePDFPremium: US$5 a month billed annually (US$60 a year), or US$9 billed monthly; listed with an "Ad-free experience"Source
Your filesFastOCRProcessed on our servers under the privacy policy; the free browser PDF tools never uploadiLovePDFKept "for a maximum of 2 hours", then removedSource
Share of characters wrong on the six scanned pages shown (lower is better)FastOCR1.0% (Chinese) to 9.1% (Urdu)iLovePDFNot tested

Why FastOCR

  • Photos and screenshots

    Every image upload gets raw text and a single-page searchable PDF, plus Word and Markdown.

    See Photos and screenshots

  • Scanned PDFs

    Scanned PDF in, searchable PDF out; text copies in the right order, including right-to-left.

    See Scanned PDFs

  • Exports

    Raw text, Word (.docx) and Markdown.

    See Exports

  • Languages

    100+ languages, detected automatically, including mixed pages.

    Share of characters wrong on our evidence scans (lower is better): Arabic 2.6%, Urdu 9.1%, Bengali 7.4%, Tamil 2.2%, Chinese 1.0%.

    See Languages

  • Free use

    Images: free, no sign-up, no watermark. PDFs: free account.

    See Free use

Proof

We have not run iLovePDF on our scans, so it has no score on this page. The nearest measured tool is another free PDF suite: PDF24 had more characters wrong than FastOCR on all six pages shown, with only Chinese inside the noise (lower is better).

Three lines of a printed page of the Urdu book Tota Kahani (written 1801) in Nastaliq script, on stained paper.(opens full size)

FastOCR

9.1% of characters wrong
احسان اُس خدا کا کہ جس نے دریائے سخن کو اپنے ابر کرم سے گو ہر معنی بخشا اور زبان
کو واسطے اپنی
حمد کے گویا کیا اور پیغمبر آخرالزمان کو ہم گنہگاروں کی شفاعت کی اسے رحمتہ اللعالمین پیدا کیا کہ

PDF24 OCR

69.0% of characters wrong
ْ سان نار نے یا ط نکر انارک ےکوی دز یمر
اسرےکو راو و نایا نکو سکیا رو ںکی شع ت وا لو سائن ال ٴ
یک جب سے ار و سال ام این دوائح کہانبىی ودب ےنکر کے سےرا
The opening lines of an Urdu page (Tota Kahani, written 1801) and the first body lines PDF24 returned for it, unedited apart from invisible direction marks removed; it first returned a few stray marks, which we left out. Each percentage is the share of characters that tool got wrong on the whole page, so lower is better. FastOCR output is from 25 October 2026; PDF24 ran on 31 October 2026 with its Urdu language set by hand. Scan: Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Text: Wikisource.

% of characters wrong by script, lower is better

  • FastOCR
  • PDF24
  • OCR.space Engine 3
  • imagetotext.info
Character error rate by script, lower is better
ScriptCharacter error rate by tool
Chinese
FastOCR 1.0%
PDF24 3.2%
OCR.space E3 no score
Tamil
FastOCR 2.2%
PDF24 9.2%
OCR.space E3 no score
Arabic
FastOCR 2.6%
PDF24 35.5%
OCR.space E3 2.9%
imagetotext.info 2.9%
English
FastOCR 3.3%
PDF24 10.1%
OCR.space E3 no score
Bengali
FastOCR 7.4%
PDF24 18.6%
OCR.space E3 11.2%
imagetotext.info 7.9%
Urdu
FastOCR 9.1%
PDF24 69.0%
OCR.space E3 19.6%
imagetotext.info 9.2%
Character error rate on one public-domain book page per script. Lower is better. Gaps under about 3 points are within the noise of the reference text. PDF24's Chinese result is a tie. "Not supported" means the tool refused the language; "no score" means it returned nothing, which says nothing about accuracy. How we tested.

Try it on your own page

iLovePDF OCR: what the tool does

iLovePDF OCR converts a non-selectable PDF into a selectable, searchable PDF. It is the OCR PDF tool at ilovepdf.com/ocr-pdf, part of the iLovePDF toolbox (often typed I Love PDF), which also runs on desktop and mobile. You choose a PDF file, select one or more document languages, and download the result. The page notes that detection accuracy goes up when you select the right languages. It does not say whether it can detect the language by itself.

The language menu is long. It names every non-Latin script we checked for: Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Hebrew. The page shows Login and Sign up buttons but does not say whether OCR needs an account, and it does not mention watermarks. On the pricing page, its pricing table marks OCR PDF as included on the free Basic plan, which comes with "limited document processing", and Premium lists an "Ad-free experience". The iLovePDF FAQ says uploads are kept for a maximum of 2 hours, then removed.

Image to text with iLovePDF, and when to use something else

iLovePDF's OCR tool is built for PDFs: its upload button says "Select PDF file", and the page does not describe photo or screenshot input. What comes back is a searchable PDF, so to extract text you open that PDF and copy from it. Getting a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file from a scan is a separate conversion tool in the same toolbox.

If you start from a picture and want the words, image to text on FastOCR skips those steps. Drop in a JPG, PNG or screenshot and the recognized text appears next to the page, ready to copy. The same upload also gives a searchable PDF, Word and Markdown. Nobody asks you to register for images, and nothing is watermarked. For a whole scanned document, make the PDF searchable with a free account.

Photo of a page

Photo of an old printed English book page, slightly grey and uneven, starting with the words 'ing, and Haggart gained an opportunity'.(opens full size)

Text FastOCR returned

3.3% of characters wrong
ing, and Haggart gained an opportunity
to escape; he left Perth for Glasgow, and
made up his mind to go to Ireland, and
started in the Steam Boat; here he wa
recognised by the Provost of Kircaldy
who went ashore at Lamlash; Haggar
The first lines of a page FastOCR read on 25 October 2026, shown as it returned them; words cut at the page edge stay cut. The percentage is the character error rate: the share of characters wrong, missing or extra, so lower is better. Scan: Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Text: Wikisource.

A free iLovePDF alternative: what FastOCR gives you

FastOCR is a free iLovePDF alternative when the job is reading text, not managing PDFs. It recognizes 100+ languages without asking which one, so a page that mixes Arabic and English needs no setup. Scanned PDFs come back searchable, and their text copies in reading order, Arabic and Urdu included. After an image is read you can translate it or tidy the wording with AI Polish. The quickest test is the free OCR online box on the home page.

iLovePDF is a PDF toolbox with OCR as one tool. FastOCR is OCR first, and these come free with it:

iLovePDF OCR accuracy: what we can and cannot say

We have no accuracy score for iLovePDF OCR, because we did not run it on our test pages. Rather than guess, here is what we measured. Of the six scripts shown (Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese and English), FastOCR had the lowest or tied-lowest error rate on 6 (gaps under 3 points count as ties). We scored character error rate: the share of characters wrong, missing or extra, so lower is better. FastOCR ranged from 1.0% (Chinese) to 9.1% (Urdu).

Two PDF suites like iLovePDF were measured. PDF24 was higher than FastOCR on every page; its closest result was Chinese. Smallpdf gave us one free download: its Arabic page was 99.1% wrong against FastOCR's 2.6%, lower is better. Neither result tells you how iLovePDF reads, so run one of your own pages through both tools before a big job.

How we tested, and where the iLovePDF facts come from

  • Pages: public-domain book scans from Wikimedia Commons, one per script, scored against the Wikisource transcription. This page shows six: Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese and English.
  • Score: character error rate after removing spaces, punctuation and Arabic diacritics; lower is better. The reference itself is 1% to 6% off a hand-proofread key, so gaps under about 3 points are ties.
  • FastOCR: production API output from 25 October 2026. Its Arabic, Urdu and English inputs were 500 pixels wide; the other tools got 1,280.
  • PDF24, Smallpdf and OCR.space: free web tools or the public demo API on 31 October 2026. iLovePDF was not run.
  • iLovePDF facts: its OCR PDF page, pricing page and FAQ, checked on 4 November 2026. Where they say nothing, the table shows Not stated. iLovePDF names no OCR engine, so we name none.

Choose iLovePDF if

  • You already use iLovePDF to merge, compress or convert, and OCR is one more step on PDFs you have there.
  • Your files are PDFs, you know their language, and a searchable PDF is the only output you need.
  • You want the same toolbox on the web, desktop and mobile.
  • You want uploads removed from its servers within two hours.

FAQ

Is iLovePDF OCR free?

Yes. Its pricing table includes OCR PDF on the free Basic plan, which the page describes as "limited document processing". Premium is listed at US$5 a month billed annually or US$9 monthly, with an ad-free experience. The OCR page does not say whether free output carries a watermark.

Can iLovePDF OCR turn an image into text?

Its OCR page asks you to select a PDF file and does not describe image input. You get a searchable PDF back, not plain text. FastOCR reads JPG, PNG and screenshots directly and shows the text on screen, with no sign-up for images.

How do I extract text from a PDF with iLovePDF?

Run OCR PDF to get a searchable PDF, then open it and copy the text. For a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file it offers separate conversion tools. FastOCR returns raw text, Word and Markdown from the upload that makes the searchable PDF.

Which languages does iLovePDF OCR support?

Its menu lists a long set of languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Hebrew. You select them yourself. FastOCR detects 100+ languages automatically, so a page that mixes two scripts needs no setting.

How accurate is iLovePDF OCR?

We do not know, because we have not tested it. Its OCR page promises high accuracy but names no engine and gives no measured score. We publish FastOCR's scores on the scripts shown. Try a page of your own in both before relying on either.

How long does iLovePDF keep my files?

Its FAQ says files are kept for a maximum of 2 hours so you can download them, then removed from its servers. FastOCR processes uploads on its servers under its privacy policy, and its browser PDF tools never upload your file.

What is a good free iLovePDF alternative for OCR?

FastOCR, if you want text rather than only a PDF. Images need no sign-up and get no watermark, and each returns text, a searchable PDF, Word and Markdown. It detects the language itself. For merging or compressing, its free browser PDF tools keep files on your device.

Method

iLovePDF facts come from its OCR PDF page, pricing page and FAQ, checked on 4 November 2026; anything they do not state is shown as Not stated, never as No. iLovePDF was not run on our scans and has no accuracy score here. Percentages are the share of characters wrong against the Wikisource text, lower is better, from our 31 October 2026 run. Details are in how we tested.

Change log

  • 20 July 2026: First published.
  • 1 November 2026: iLovePDF pricing and plan facts refreshed.
  • 4 November 2026: Moved to the comparison template; re-checked iLovePDF's OCR, pricing and FAQ pages and added image-to-text guidance.