If your work includes editing scanned PDFs, handwritten notes, or image-based documents, it’s crucial to make them editable first.
This is why we have reviewed the 7 best OCR recognition software in 2025 according to different demands. We’ve also shared the advantages, disadvantages, licensing, and pricing options of each tool. So, you can pick the best fit for whatever goal you may have.
For our review of the best OCR recognition tools, we went through around 12 options and then narrowed them to 7. Then, we placed them under different categories, based on their different capabilities, like best overall in 2025 and best handwriting OCR, etc. Here’s a table sharing our test results, methodology, and criteria against which we evaluated each tool:
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Here are the details for the top 3 OCR recognition software for 2025, providing much more than just OCR for scanned PDFs:
Tenorshare PDNob is the best OCR recognition software in 2025, offering 99% accuracy while keeping the original layout. You can also edit and replace images in scanned PDFs, compress, merge, and protect them with encryption and digital signatures.
Features:
Reason to Choose It:
Tenorshare PDNob is the most accurate OCR tool, providing 99% accuracy for scanned PDFs. But that’s not all. It also offers comprehensive editing, conversion, and annotation tools. You can even make quick summaries of lengthy documents and chat with them to extract insights. The tool even allows batch processing, splitting, and merging PDFs as well.
How to Use:
Follow the steps beneath to use Tenorshare PDNob to OCR a scanned PDF file:
ABBYY FineReader PDF is an advanced OCR tool for recognizing text and editing PDFs. It can accurately convert scanned documents, images, and PDFs into editable formats like Word or Excel while keeping the original layout, tables, and fonts.
You can also edit text and images directly in PDFs, merge or split files, compress them, create fillable forms, and add digital signatures. Moreover, it includes a feature to compare two document versions, even scanned ones, and shows the differences. The software offers automation tools like Hot Folder to batch process up to 5,000 pages monthly (in the Corporate version).
Ideal For:
ABBYY FineReader PDF is great for professionals, businesses, and power users who need accurate OCR, advanced PDF editing, and automation. It’s ideal for enterprise tasks and multilingual projects, especially on Windows. However, it’s not the best choice for casual users due to its cost and complexity.
Pricing & License Options:
ABBYY FineReader PDF is subscription-based only and has no one-time purchase. Here are the plans it offers:
Pros:
Cons:
Adobe Scan is a free mobile app that turns your phone into a scanner, using AI-powered OCR to convert documents, receipts, and images into editable, searchable PDFs. It supports handwriting recognition, multiple languages, and offers scanning modes for books, IDs, and more. Tools include auto-capture, edge detection, cropping, brightness adjustment, and a “Magic Eraser” to clean up scans. You can also export files to PDF, Word, or Excel and sync them with Adobe Cloud.
Ideal For:
Adobe Scan is great for quick scans like receipts or IDs, and basic OCR on small documents on your mobile. It’s also a good free option for those using other Adobe apps. However, it’s not suited for large OCR tasks or advanced editing without a paid plan.
Pricing & License Options:
The Adobe Scan app is mostly free to use for basic OCR and editing. But it offers a monthly and annual subscription plan for advanced features and custom business plans available. There’s also a 57% off for students/teachers (1st year):
Pros:
Cons:
There’s another feature in OCR software. Some of them can even recognize handwriting and convert it into searchable and editable text. Here are the 3 best OCR software for handwriting recognition reviewed in detail:
Microsoft OneNote uses OCR to extract text from images, scans, and handwriting, making it searchable and editable. It operates well with other Microsoft tools like Word, Excel, and Teams, and supports real-time collaboration. OneNote is available on all major platforms and syncs through OneDrive. Users can mix OCR text with drawings, audio, and web clips on a flexible canvas. With Microsoft 365 Copilot (paid), you can also summarize and organize notes using AI.
Ideal For:
OneNote OCR is great for quickly pulling text from images, handwriting, or screenshots, and is perfect for short, simple items like receipts or notes. It also offers free OCR for Microsoft users, but it’s not ideal for large or complex OCR tasks.
Pricing & License Options:
Microsoft OneNote OCR software offers a free version and both monthly and annual personal and business plans. OneNot also offers up to 75% off for nonprofits and educational users.
Pros:
Cons:
Pen to Print is the best OCR handwriting recognition software for mobiles that features a simple scan-and-edit workflow with easy tools for making corrections. It can turn handwritten notes, whether in block letters, cursive, or regular script, into editable and searchable digital text. It operates on iOS, Android, and the web. Premium users can also convert multiple pages at once, export notes to Word or TXT files, and share via email or messaging apps. Furthermore, the Pen to Print tool connects with cloud services like Google Drive and OneNote.
Ideal For:
It’s the best handwriting OCR software for students, professionals, and personal use. It can turn handwritten notes into digital text, even messy ones. However, it only supports the Latin script, and free users can’t export.
Pricing & License Options:
Pen and Print mobile app offers monthly, annual, and lifetime plans at low costs:
Pros:
Cons:
LibreOffice for Ubuntu doesn’t have built-in OCR, but can use tools like Tesseract through plugins such as OCRFeeder or gImageReader. These tools let you extract text from scanned PDFs or images (PNG, JPG) and save it as editable formats like ODT or DOCX. Some plugins, like ONLYOFFICE Docs or AI-based add-ons, offer improved accuracy and operate directly within LibreOffice.
Ideal For:
It’s perfect for simple text extraction from scanned images or PDFs using free, open-source tools with local processing. However, it’s not suited for handwriting, complex layouts, or users who want easy, automatic setup.
Pricing & License Options:
LibreOffice is an open-source and free software that also uses free tools and plugins:
Pros:
Cons:
If you don’t want to download an OCR software, there are also good online options you can try. However, they’ll lack the advanced features of dedicated tools. But if you require basic OCR, here are the 3 best online OCR tools:
OnlineOCR.net OCR is a free online and best tool that supports 46 languages and manages documents with mixed languages. It accepts formats like PDF, TIFF, JPEG, and ZIP (for batch jobs), with file size limits of 15 MB (free) and 200 MB (paid). The tool can convert files to Word, Excel, PDF, and more, with features like auto-rotation, deskewing, and email OCR. Registered users get batch processing, page selection, and file storage for a month. OnlineOCR also offers SOAP/REST APIs for developers.
Ideal For:
It’s great for quick text extraction from clear, printed images or PDFs like receipts or short docs, with support for 46 languages. The tool is also good for occasional use with no installation needed. However, it’s unsuitable for recognizing handwriting, low-quality scans, complex layouts, or large files.
Pricing & License Options:
OnlineOCR is flexible with its pricing, offering weekly, monthly, and annual subscriptions, and lifetime and enterprise plans. The paid features provide faster speed and ZIP & multi-page PDF support with no ads:
Pros:
Cons:
OCR.space is a versatile OCR tool that supports various formats like JPG, PNG, GIF, and PDFs, including multi-page and multi-column layouts. It can create searchable PDFs and even hide the text layer if needed. OCR.space is the best Arabic OCR tool that recognizes other languages (20+), including Asian (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) and major European ones.
It offers two OCR engines: Engine 1 for general use and Engine 2 for complex layouts, auto-rotation, and language detection, including vertical text. The free API provides flexible input options, URL, file upload, or Base64, and returns results in JSON format.
Ideal For:
OCR.space is good for quickly extracting text from clear, printed documents like receipts or forms, especially for developers or businesses. It functions well for basic PDF-to-text conversion but isn’t suitable for handwriting, complex layouts, or poor-quality scans. The tool is also expensive for individual and casual users.
Pricing & License Options:
The OCR.space only provides monthly subscriptions, with each plan lifting the limitations and restrictions on the tool’s usage:
Pros:
Cons:
The best OCR engine depends on your needs. For top accuracy and advanced layout detection, cloud tools like Google Document AI, Amazon Textract, and Azure Form Recognizer work well. For free options with high accuracy, Tenorshare PDNob is solid with 99% accuracy, complex layouts, and multiple languages.
As of 2025, Tesseract remains a leading open-source OCR tool, great for simple text and multilingual support. However, it faces issues with complex layouts, handwriting, or poor-quality images unless preprocessed. Faster options like TesserOCR or AI tools like Claude 3.7 and GPT-4o offer better accuracy on messy or unstructured documents. Tesseract is ideal for basic use, but advanced tasks are better handled by hybrid or paid solutions.
Yes. Google Cloud Vision and Document AI are more accurate than Tesseract, especially for complex layouts, handwriting, and multilingual text. They’re excellent at reading tables and understanding document structure, often scoring near-perfect in tests. However, they are paid services. If you have the budget, Google’s tools are an excellent alternative. For free use, Tesseract with some custom training is a better choice.
We tested many OCR tools to choose the best OCR recognition software for high accuracy, layout preservation, handwriting recognition, file support, and smart features. While some tools are great for professionals, others for handwriting and online tasks, Tenorshare PDNobstood out as the best all-in-one OCR solution in 2025.
With 99% accuracy, AI-powered summaries, support for 30+ formats, 200+ annotations, 100+ text/image edits, and batch processing, it’s perfect for managing scanned PDFs comprehensively. It also includes strong language support and reliable 24/7 customer service.
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