How to make a PDF searchable and copyable on iPhone
You don't need special software to make a PDF searchable and copyable on iPhone. FernPDF runs entirely in Safari on iOS: open the tool, drop your file, download the result. Text extraction runs on-device. PDFs with an embedded text layer extract exactly; image-only scans need full OCR (roadmap).
Files from iCloud Drive or the Files app open directly in Safari, and processing happens on the phone itself: no app to install, and nothing uses your data plan to upload.
Step by step
1Open the OCR PDF tool.
2Drop your PDF.
3Choose the output: a searchable PDF or plain text (.txt).
4Click “Run OCR” and download the result.
No upload · no account · no watermark
FAQ
Common questions
Yes, FernPDF is a web app, so it runs in Safari on iOS with no installation. All processing happens on your device using WebAssembly.
Yes. Every core FernPDF tool is free, with no account, no watermark, and no trial limits.
For PDFs that contain a text layer, extraction is exact: every word is read directly from the document, entirely on-device.
Image-only scans have no text layer to read. Recognising text inside images needs a full OCR engine. That’s on the roadmap; this tool covers every PDF with embedded text today.