Best Free OCR Software and Tools in 2026: 12 Compared, Tested on 8 Languages

Limits tables do not show whether the text comes out right, so we ran eight public-domain scanned book pages, one each in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese and English, through the free tools we could reach. Each result was scored against the page's Wikisource text as the share of characters wrong, so lower is better.

In our test of 8 scanned pages, FastOCR had the lowest or tied-lowest error rate on 7 (gaps under 3 points count as ties). On the English page every tool we scored got between 3.3% and 10.1% of characters wrong. The gap opens on other scripts. Even with the right language pack, Tesseract got 55.3% of the Urdu page's characters wrong, 80.0% of the Persian page and 71.9% of the Chinese page. FastOCR got 9.1%, 10.5% and 1.0% wrong on the same pages. Lower is better.

Some free tools did as well as FastOCR, and one did clearly better on Hindi. Lower is better in every number here:

• imagetotext.info: Arabic 2.9%, Urdu 9.2%, Hindi 14.5% and Bengali 7.9% of characters wrong, against FastOCR's 2.6%, 9.1%, 13.2% and 7.4%.
• OCR.space Engine 3: Hindi 2.7%, clearly better than FastOCR's 13.2%; Persian 7.8% against 10.5%, inside the test noise, so a tie; but Urdu 19.6%.
• OCR.space's default Engine 2 rejected the Arabic, Hindi and Persian pages and got 100% of the Bengali page wrong.
• PDF24 got 69.0% of the Urdu page and 79.1% of the Persian page wrong; its Chinese (3.2%) was close to FastOCR's.
• OnlineOCR.net has no Urdu option, so our Urdu page came back as Latin letters, 99.6% wrong.
• Smallpdf has no language menu. Its Arabic result was 99.1% wrong, and the next download was refused as "out of free downloads".

If one of these tools already fits your work, accuracy alone is not a reason to switch. Where FastOCR differs is what you get after the text is read: a searchable PDF that copies in the right order, Word and Markdown files, and no account for images. Caveats are in how we tested.

If you want OCR software on your own computer rather than a website, FastOCR has free desktop apps for Mac and Windows, in public beta. They turn scanned PDFs and images into searchable PDFs, plain text, Word and Markdown. They need no account, work offline and never upload your files.

The apps read text with the recognition built into the operating system: Apple's on the Mac and Windows OCR on Windows. That is not the website's engine, so the test numbers on this page do not apply to them. The Windows app asks you to pick a language that Windows has an OCR pack for, and links to the website for the rest. Translation, AI Polish and bank statements stay on the website.

The Mac app needs macOS 13 or later; the Windows app needs Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit (x64). Both are unsigned betas, so macOS and Windows SmartScreen show a warning the first time you open them.

Other free OCR software: Tesseract is open source but has no built-in window, and PDF24's OCR page offers a desktop app download as well.

If you can pay, desktop suites name more recognition languages than FastOCR does: ABBYY FineReader PDF lists 198 and offers a 7-day trial, and Readiris lists 138 with a free trial download. See FastOCR vs ABBYY FineReader and OCR software for scanned documents.

FastOCR reads photos, screenshots and scanned pages in 100+ languages and detects the language itself, including pages that mix scripts. Images need no account and carry no watermark. Each image comes back as raw text and a single-page searchable PDF, with Word and Markdown downloads. To try it now, use free OCR online on the home page.

Scanned PDFs come back as searchable PDFs whose text copies in the right order, including right-to-left Arabic, Urdu and Hebrew. PDFs need a free account. A finished image can be translated or cleaned up with AI Polish.

Also from FastOCR:

• Free offline Mac and Windows apps, in public beta.
• A Chrome extension that copies text from anything on screen.
• Free PDF tools that run in your browser: merge, compress, split, sign and more.
• Bank statements to Excel, CSV and QuickBooks.
• A REST API, Python SDK and MCP server for AI agents, plus LangChain and LlamaIndex loaders.

In our test: FastOCR got 9.1% of the Urdu page's characters wrong, 10.5% of the Persian page and 1.0% of the Chinese page (lower is better). Its Hindi (13.2%) trailed OCR.space Engine 3 (2.7%).

Google Drive reads text when you open an image or PDF with Google Docs. Its help page says the file should be 2 MB or smaller and that Drive detects the language itself. It lists Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Chinese and Hebrew.

Source: Google Drive Help, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs Google Drive OCR.

PDF24 makes scanned PDFs searchable for free. Its page says no registration is required, the tool is paid for by advertising, and files are deleted from its server after one hour. You pick the language by hand from a list that includes Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali and Chinese, and you get a searchable PDF or PDF/A back.

In our test: PDF24 got 10.1% of the English page's characters wrong and 3.2% of the Chinese page, but 69.0% of the Urdu page (lower is better).

Source: PDF24 OCR, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs PDF24.

iLovePDF's OCR PDF tool returns a selectable, searchable PDF. Its language list includes Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Chinese, and the page says detection is more accurate when you select the document's languages. The pricing page describes the free plan as limited document processing and lists an ad-free experience under Premium.

Source: iLovePDF pricing, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs iLovePDF.

Adobe's free online tool makes a PDF searchable. You can upload without signing in, but you sign in to download the searchable PDF. The page names English, German, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and Adobe's OCR language list adds Chinese and Japanese. Text recognition on PNG, JPG and TIFF files is described under the Acrobat Pro trial, not the free tool.

Source: Adobe online OCR, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs Adobe Acrobat.

OCR.space has a free web tool that needs no registration, with a 5 MB limit per document. Its free API plan allows 1 MB files, 3 PDF pages and 500 requests a day per IP address, and searchable PDFs on that plan carry a watermark. Engine 3 adds more than 200 languages; Urdu and Bengali are not named on its language table.

In our test: the default Engine 2 rejected Arabic, Hindi and Persian and got 100% of the Bengali page's characters wrong. Engine 3 did well: 2.9% on Arabic, 2.7% on Hindi and 7.8% on Persian. Lower is better.

Source: OCR.space API, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs OCR.space.

imagetotext.info turns images into text with no registration and exports text, Word, HTML and Markdown. Uploading several files at once needs an upgrade, and its Premium plan is sold as 'no ads and captcha'. The language sentence on its home page names Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai, not Urdu, Hindi or Bengali.

In our test: it read those scripts about as well as FastOCR anyway, with 9.2% of the Urdu page's characters wrong against FastOCR's 9.1%. Lower is better, and gaps under 3 points are noise.

Source: imagetotext.info, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs imagetotext.info.

i2OCR is free for one image or one PDF page per run; bulk OCR needs a premium plan. It lists 128 languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali and Tamil, and outputs text, Word, HTML and searchable PDF. Its FAQ allows images up to 20 MB and says files are deleted automatically within 30 minutes.

In our test: not run, because the site sits behind a CAPTCHA.

Source: i2OCR FAQ, checked 4 November 2026.

NewOCR needs no registration and says there is no limit on the number of files. It lists 122 languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi and Bengali, takes images, PDF, TIFF and DjVu, and returns TXT, DOC or PDF. Its page says it is based on the Tesseract OCR engine.

In our test: the site sits behind a CAPTCHA, so we scored Tesseract, the engine NewOCR names, instead. NewOCR's own settings may differ.

Source: NewOCR, checked 4 November 2026.

Tesseract is free, open-source OCR under the Apache License. It reads more than 100 languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi and Bengali, and writes plain text, hOCR, PDF, TSV and ALTO. Its documentation says it has no built-in window, so you run it from the command line or through another app.

In our test: with the right language pack, Tesseract 5.5.4 got 8.5% of the English page's characters wrong and 8.5% of the Tamil page, but 55.3% of the Urdu page and 80.0% of the Persian page. Lower is better.

Source: Tesseract on GitHub, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs Tesseract.

OnlineOCR.net lets guests convert 5 files an hour, up to 15 MB each, with no signup; registered users get larger files. It lists 46 languages and returns Word, Excel, text, PDF or RTF. Its language menu does not list Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali or Tamil.

In our test: with no Urdu option, our Urdu page came back as Latin letters, 99.6% of characters wrong (lower is better).

Source: OnlineOCR.net, checked 4 November 2026. Compare: FastOCR vs OnlineOCR.net.

Convertio's OCR page shows 10 available pages and asks you to sign up for more. You choose the language from a list of about 75 that includes Arabic, Chinese and Hebrew but not Urdu, Persian, Hindi or Bengali. Outputs include Word, Excel, searchable PDF and text.

Source: Convertio OCR, checked 4 November 2026.

Your phone may already read text. Apple's Live Text needs an iPhone XS, XR or later with iOS 15, and Apple says it isn't available in all regions or languages. Its feature list names Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai, and does not list Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, Bengali or Tamil.

For English and other Latin-script text, a built-in tool is often enough. For other scripts, or when you need a searchable PDF, use a web tool or a desktop app. See FastOCR vs Apple Live Text.

Most hosted OCR APIs need an account and a key. The FastOCR REST API returns text or a searchable PDF, with a Python SDK, an MCP server for AI agents, and LangChain and LlamaIndex loaders; its free monthly pages are shared with PDFs on the website. OCR.space's free API allows 1 MB files and 3 PDF pages and watermarks searchable PDFs. Limits for other providers are in the free OCR API guide.

• Check your script on the tool's language list first. A listed language is not a good result, but an unlisted one is a warning.
• Check the file cap. 2 MB (Google Drive) and 1 MB (OCR.space API) rule out many scans.
• Decide what you need back. Plain text, Word, Markdown, or a searchable PDF you can search and copy from.
• Decide where the file may go. If it must not leave your computer, use a desktop app or Tesseract.
• Test one real page. Paste the output into a text editor. For right-to-left text, check that the first word sits at the right and the numbers are intact.

• Dates: the other tools ran on 31 October 2026, and FastOCR's output came from its production API on 25 October 2026. Advertised facts were checked on 4 November 2026. We will re-run the test before quoting these numbers after January 2027.
• Pages: eight scanned book pages from Wikimedia Commons, public domain or CC0, one per script. The reference is each page's Wikisource transcription.
• Score: the share of characters wrong after removing spaces, punctuation and Arabic diacritics, so lower is better. The Wikisource text differs from our own proofread key by 1% to 6%, so gaps under about 3 points are noise.
• FastOCR got a smaller 500-pixel-wide image for the Arabic, Urdu and English pages; the other tools got 1,280 pixels.
• NewOCR and i2OCR sit behind a CAPTCHA and were not run. For NewOCR we ran Tesseract 5.5.4, the engine its page names, with the right language pack.
• OCR.space ran on its public demo key. Empty Engine 3 results on Tamil, Chinese and English may be rate limiting, so we do not count them.
• Google Drive, iLovePDF, Adobe and Convertio were not run; they are compared on their own published facts only.
• Scans: Wikimedia Commons. Text: Wikisource.