Free OCR API and Online OCR
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Online OCR - How to use it
The OCR.space Online OCR service converts images and PDF documents into editable text files using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The service also supports creating searchable PDF documents.
Our Online OCR service is free to use with no registration required. Simply upload your image files in JPG, PNG, GIF, or PDF format. The service supports multi-page documents and multi-column text recognition. The free tier has a file size limit of 5MB per document.
For automated OCR processing and batch document conversion, please use our free OCR API instead of web-scraping this interface, which is designed for interactive use only.
Data Privacy & Security: All uploaded files and extracted text are automatically deleted immediately after OCR processing is complete. We do not store, archive, or retain any of your data, as detailed in our privacy policy.
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Your data never leaves EU jurisdiction. Our OCR API is fully GDPR compliant, ensuring the highest standards of data protection and privacy for all users.
Supported OCR languages
The OCR engines use different recognition methods and support different OCR languages. We recommend that you try each engine to find out which one works best for your documents. For Engine 2 and 3, keep the language at auto (the default); the specific language codes are deprecated.
If you need help selecting the best OCR engine for your project, please contact us.
| OCR Language: | Engine 1 | Engine 2 | Engine 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic OCR (العربية) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulgarian OCR (Български) | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes |
| Chinese OCR (中文, Simplified and traditional characters) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cantonese OCR (粵語, Simplified and traditional characters) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Croatian OCR (Hrvatski) | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes |
| Czech OCR (Čeština) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Danish OCR (Dansk) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dutch OCR (Nederlands) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| English OCR (*) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Finnish OCR (Suomi) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| French OCR (Français) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| German OCR (Deutsch) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Greek OCR (Ελληνικά) | Yes | - | Yes |
| Hebrew OCR (עברית) | - | - | Yes |
| Hindi OCR (हिन्दी) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Hungarian OCR (Magyar) | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes |
| Indonesian OCR (Bahasa Indonesia) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Italian OCR (Italiano) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Japanese OCR (日本語) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Korean OCR (한국어) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kannada OCR (ಕನ್ನಡ) | - | - | Yes |
| Malay OCR (Bahasa Melayu) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Marathi OCR (मराठी) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Norwegian OCR (Norsk) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Persian(Farsi) OCR (فارسی) | - | - | Yes |
| Polish OCR (Polski) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Portuguese OCR (Português) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Romanian OCR (Română) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Russian OCR (Русский) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish OCR (Español) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Slovenian OCR (Slovenščina) | Yes | Yes (limited) | Yes |
| Swedish OCR (Svenska) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tamil OCR (தமிழ்) | - | - | Yes |
| Telugu OCR (తెలుగు) | - | - | Yes |
| Thai OCR (ไทย) | - | Yes | Yes |
| Turkish OCR (Türkçe) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ukrainian OCR (Українська) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vietnamese OCR (Tiếng Việt) | - | Yes | Yes |
Special characters like §%&()=@@€ | Yes (limited) | Yes | Yes |
Language autodetection (language=auto) | - | Yes (default) | Yes (default) |
| Vertical text (Japanese, Chinese) | - | Yes (with auto) | Yes |
(*) English OCR is always included: In addition to the selected OCR language (e. g. Japanese), the English alphabet is also recognized.
(limited) Engine 2 has no dedicated model for this language. The text is read through the Latin or Cyrillic recognizer, so expect occasional errors on accented characters. Even so, the overall OCR quality is better than with Engine 1.
In addition to the languages listed here, OCR Engine 3 supports over 200+ additional OCR languages. If the OCR language you need is still missing, please inform us in the OCR forum.