iLovePDF OCR: What the OCR PDF Tool Gives You Back

iLovePDF OCR is the company's OCR PDF tool. You upload a scanned PDF, choose the document's languages, and get back a PDF that looks the same but whose text can be selected and searched. iLovePDF says the recognized text sits in an invisible layer under the page image, so the appearance of the scan does not change.

The description here rests on iLovePDF's own pages, opened on October 9, 2026: the OCR PDF tool page, an article on its blog dated August 27, 2026, its pricing page, its security page, and its terms and privacy policy. Nothing in this post measures how well the tool reads. Where two iLovePDF pages disagree, each is quoted and named.

What does iLovePDF's OCR PDF tool do?

iLovePDF's OCR PDF tool converts a PDF whose text cannot be selected into one whose text can. iLovePDF's article on how to make a PDF searchable says the tool "reads the text in the page images and adds an invisible text layer underneath, so the document looks identical but becomes fully searchable."

The iLovePDF OCR PDF tool page describes the job in its heading as converting non-selectable PDF files into selectable and searchable PDF. The page has one upload control, labeled for a PDF file, with buttons to bring a file in from Google Drive or Dropbox, and one group of options, the document languages.

What comes back, and what does not

The last row matters most for a legal file. A searchable PDF from any tool is a picture plus the tool's best reading of it, and nothing on iLovePDF's pages says the tool tells you which words it was unsure of. The checking is yours.

The article says the same text layer is what iLovePDF's summarize and translate tools rely on afterward. Those are further uploads of the same document, each one a separate decision about a client's file.

Choosing document languages in iLovePDF OCR

You choose the languages before the tool runs, from a picker labeled Document languages on the tool page. iLovePDF's reason is printed beside the picker: "The accuracy of detection is increased by correctly selecting the document's languages." English is the first entry in the list.

The plural is deliberate. The article's steps tell you to "select the main languages of the PDF", and when the tool page was opened for this post the picker allowed up to three choices. A deposition exhibit with an English cover page and a Spanish contract behind it would call for both.

How many languages

iLovePDF's two pages give different answers.

• The tool page's picker listed 121 entries when it was opened. They run from English, Afrikaans and Amharic through to Yiddish and Yoruba, and include Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Russian, Tagalog and Latin. One entry is not a language at all: "Math / Equation detection".
• The article's FAQ says: "OCR PDF covers 14 languages including English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Turkish."

The picker is the control you will use, so go by what it offers on the day. If the language you need is in the picker but not among the article's fourteen, treat that as a reason to test before you rely on it, not as a promise.

Picking for a real file

1. Look through the scan and note every language that appears in body text, not only on the cover.
2. Select those languages in the picker. Leave out languages that appear only in a letterhead or a single stamp.
3. Run the tool on the whole file.
4. Search the result for one word from each language, choosing a word with an accented or non-English letter where you can.

Older historical forms are in the list too, such as "German (Fraktur Latin)" and "Spanish - Old". Unless you are working with an archive document set in an old typeface, pick the modern entry.

Is iLovePDF OCR free or a Premium feature?

OCR PDF is listed on the free plan. The comparison table on the iLovePDF pricing page marks OCR PDF as included under Basic, the free tier, as well as under Premium and Business. What changes with a paid plan, per that table, is how many files and how large a file one task accepts.

The rows that mention OCR PDF, as the table stood when it was opened for this post:

The table does not label the unit of the batch row; read with its section heading it is the number of files in one task. Prices are on the same page and are not repeated here.

What the free plan's wording leaves open

The plan summary describes the free tier as "Limited document processing" and Premium as "Unlimited document processing". No page opened for this post says how many OCR tasks a free user may run in a day or how many pages one file may have. The article adds one detail about a neighboring tool: for PDF to Word, it says to "create an iLovePDF account to enable the OCR feature". It does not say the same about OCR PDF.

Working out whether a file fits

The 15 MB figure deserves attention, because color scans of long documents are large files. As a worked example, suppose a paralegal named Tomas Reyes has a 140-page color scan of a commercial lease that weighs 38 MB. On the free tier, by the table, it is over the limit for one task. He has three honest options: rescan in a lighter mode, split the file into parts under the limit, or use a plan or a tool with a higher ceiling.

Splitting has a cost he should count. Three parts mean three uploads, three downloads, a merge, and a check that no page was dropped or reordered along the way. For a file that will be searched for a clause months later, that check is not optional. Limits and splitting are treated at length in the post on how to convert a large scanned PDF to Word online.

For comparison of the kind of limit only, not of quality: Schema Law accepts uploads up to 20 MB, and its Free plan allows 1 document a day of up to 3 pages. The paid allowances are on the pricing page.

iLovePDF on the web, the desktop app and the mobile app

iLovePDF offers the web tool, a desktop app for Windows and Mac, and a mobile app. Its pages say the desktop app can process files on your computer, and its terms say some desktop and mobile tools send files to its servers. No page opened for this post says which of those is true of OCR.

What each source says

So the documentation establishes three things and leaves one open. The desktop app exists and can work on local files. The apps contain some tools that are "online tools" and go to the servers. The article says the OCR tool is available offline in the desktop app. What is not stated in the terms or on the app pages is a list of which tools are local and which are online.

How to find out on your own machine

For a firm, "runs on my computer" and "runs on their servers" are different answers to the confidentiality question, so settle it by test, using a blank or public document:

1. Install the desktop app and sign in if it asks you to.
2. Disconnect the computer from the network.
3. Run OCR on a one-page public document.
4. If it completes, the tool ran locally for that task. If it fails or waits, it needs the servers.
5. Repeat after each major update of the app, because the terms reserve the right for functions to differ between platforms.

Do the equivalent on a phone with airplane mode. The terms also contain a warning specific to iPhones and iPads: uninstalling the mobile app deletes files stored locally within it. Move finished files out of the app before anyone tidies the phone.

The general trade between a browser tool and installed software is the subject of the post on online OCR versus desktop OCR for law firms.

What do iLovePDF's terms say about files you upload?

iLovePDF's terms say uploaded files are deleted within two hours. The User Content section of the iLovePDF terms and conditions reads: "ILOVEPDF will automatically delete files from your Content within two (2) hours of processing them on ILOVEPDF servers". It carves out iLoveSign, the signing product, which follows its own storage terms.

The statements, by document

Deletion. The terms add that "Your content will only remain on our servers as long as the download link is available (i.e., two (2) hours after it has been processed on our servers)." The iLovePDF security page says files "are automatically and permanently deleted within two hours of being processed" and that users have "the option to manually delete files from the download screen". The same page notes that signed documents are retained for up to five years.

Access to content. The terms say: "ILOVEPDF does not access and analyze the content uploaded by You to be processed by the Programs and therefore ILOVEPDF has no effective knowledge of its content." The iLovePDF privacy policy words it with a qualifier: iLovePDF "will not access, analyze, review, index or carry out any other action on their content except as necessary to provide the ILOVEPDF services".

Training. The privacy policy states, in capital letters, that iLovePDF does not use your content to train, improve or develop its AI models or any third-party AI models.

Your role and theirs. The privacy policy says that when you upload files containing personal data, you act as the data controller and iLovePDF as a data processor, under a data processing agreement attached to the policy as Appendix I. It also asks you to make sure you are authorized to upload other people's personal data.

Encryption. The security page says data is protected "both in transit and at rest" and describes end-to-end encryption from upload to delivery. What such statements cover is explained in the post on encrypted OCR.

Language of the contract. The terms say they were drafted in Spanish and that the Spanish version prevails over a translation where the law permits. If a clause matters to your firm, that is the version to have read.

Reading the two-hour window

Two details are worth noticing. The clock in the terms starts at processing, not at upload, and the manual delete button exists so you need not wait for it. If you use the tool for a file that matters, delete it from the download screen as soon as you have saved the result.

Other tools publish other figures. Smallpdf's published deletion window is stated differently depending on whether you are signed in. What a deletion promise does and does not cover, including backups and logs, is examined in the post on whether a converter keeps your files.

None of this tells you whether you may upload a given client document. That turns on your jurisdiction's confidentiality rules, your firm's policy and anything attached to the document itself, such as a protective order. Check those before the vendor's terms, not after.

Checking the PDF iLovePDF returns before it goes in the file

Run a short search-and-compare test on every file the tool returns: confirm the page count, search for words you can see on the first, middle and last pages, and read a copied passage against the image. iLovePDF's article gives the basic check itself: press Ctrl+F and search for a word you can see.

The test

1. Count the pages. The returned PDF should have exactly as many pages as the scan you uploaded.
2. Search three places. Pick a distinctive word on the first page, one near the middle and one on the last page. Each search should land on the right spot.
3. Search for something hard. Choose a party's surname, a dollar amount and a date. These are the items a later search will be looking for.
4. Copy and compare. Select one paragraph, paste it into a blank document, and read it against the page. Look at digits, punctuation and the ends of lines.
5. Try a miss. Search for a word that is on a stamped, faint or handwritten part of a page. If it is not found, note on the file that those parts are not covered by search.
6. Name the result. Save the returned file under a name that marks it as the searchable copy, and keep the original scan untouched.

Why step 5 is on the list

iLovePDF's article is direct about two limits. On handwriting its FAQ says: "OCR is built for printed text. Handwriting gives unreliable results." On scan quality its key takeaways recommend clear scans at 300 DPI or higher. A file with margin notes or a poor fax in it will therefore have places a search cannot reach, and the person who searches it next year needs to know that a clean result is not proof that a word is absent.

A search that finds nothing has two possible meanings: the word is not in the document, or the word is there and was read wrongly. How a PDF search matches words, and why a single misread letter defeats it, is set out in the post on how to scan a PDF for text.

A worked example

Suppose an associate, Helen Abara, runs a 22-page insurance policy through the tool. The page count matches. "Declarations" is found on page 1, "Exclusions" on page 11 and "Cancellation" on page 22. The policy number is found. The premium is not: the search for "4,180.00" returns nothing, and when she copies the line she sees the tool read the figure as "4,1B0.00". She leaves the PDF as it is, writes the correct figure in her notes from the page image, and adds a line to the file note that amounts in this copy must be read from the image.

That is the standard to hold any returned file to. The search layer is a finding aid. The page image remains the document.

On the downloaded PDF, find each party, the date of any notice, and an exhibit label you can see. Where the file includes an affidavit, read the signature date and the claim it describes straight off the image. Then read one page from the middle of the file.