Transform scanned PDFs into searchable, accessible documents with Tesseract OCR – 100% Free, 100% Local
PDFix integrates Tesseract OCR, the industry-standard open-source OCR engine to automatically add searchable text layers to scanned PDF files. This free, locally-deployed solution delivers accurate text recognition across 100+ languages while maintaining complete document privacy.
Meet PDFix Desktop + Tesseract
- 100% Free & Open Source: OCR technology with zero licensing costs
- Highly Accurate: Recognized as one of the most accurate open-source OCR engines
- 100+ Languages Supported: Multilingual recognition including complex scripts
- Local Processing: Private, secure OCR on your machine – no cloud required
- Accessibility Foundation: Creates the text layer needed for PDF/UA compliance
- Batch OCR: Process entire folders of scanned documents automatically

How It Works: Choose Your Path
For PDFix Desktop Users
Perfect for digitization projects, accessibility specialists, and document archivists.
- Download PDFix Desktop
- 🐳 Install Docker Desktop First!
- Open PDFix Desktop and pull the docker via Action Manager (one-time set up) → OCR Tesseract
- Upload a PDF to PDFix Desktop → Run action
For PDFix SDK Users & Developers
Perfect for automated workflows, document management systems, and digitization pipelines.
- Automated Pipeline Integration
- Build Tesseract OCR into your document processing systems or accessibility remediation pipelines using PDFix SDK.
- Resources for SDK Integration:
- 📦 Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/pdfix/ocr-tesseract
- 💻 GitHub Repository: https://hub.docker.com/r/pdfix/ocr-tesseract
- SDK Benefits
- Automated OCR in document workflows
- Integrate with scanning systems and DMS
- Batch process unlimited document volumes
- Multi-threaded processing for speed
- Custom language and configuration options
Local Processing Benefits
- 100% Local Processing
- No internet required
- Complete privacy
- Fast processing
- Open Source Transparency
- Compliance-Ready
The Technology Behind It
- Tesseract OCR
- The modern version uses LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) neural networks for character recognition, providing state-of-the-art accuracy across diverse fonts, languages, and document qualities.
- PDFix SDK Integration
- The Dockerized solution combines Tesseract’s OCR capabilities with PDFix’s PDF processing:
- Image Extraction
- Text Recognition
- Text Layer Addition
- Searchable Output
- Batch Automation
- The Dockerized solution combines Tesseract’s OCR capabilities with PDFix’s PDF processing:
Real-World Applications
- Digital Archives
- Legal Document Management
- Medical Records Digitization
- Financial Compliance
- Government Transparency
- Academic Research
- Corporate Document Management
Resources
- Getting Started Guide: https://pdfix.net/user-guide-external-actions/
- GitHub: https://github.com/pdfix/action-ocr-tesseract-docker
- Docker: https://hub.docker.com/r/pdfix/ocr-tesseract
Actions
| 🆓 🖥️ [Free][Local] | OCR (Tesseract) | Automatically adds an OCR text layer to scanned PDF files using PDFix SDK and Tesseract OCR [Local] |









