Redact PDFs for real: nothing left under the black boxes
- Free: 5 documents a day, up to 3 redacted pages each, true redaction
- $4.95 once: Any length, one-click redact-all, batch folders, scrub hidden data
Vow OCR
OCR software for Windows
Scans and photos to text. Searchable, editable, private.
Drop a scan, a phone photo of a page or a scanned PDF and press Read text. Vow OCR straightens it, reads it in seconds and saves a searchable PDF, a Word document and plain text beside the original, with the words checked next to the page. Nothing is uploaded.
- No ads
- No malware
- No account
- Light & dark theme
- First 3 pages of every document, 10 documents a day, every text format
No ads. Ever.No pop-ups, no banners, no "offers".
No malware or bundlewareThe installer installs one thing: this app.
No account, no uploadIt works on your PC, and your files stay there.
Free daily limits, just $9.95 unlimitedNo subscription. No trial that runs out.
The problem
Getting text out of a scan shouldn't be this hard
The usual choices are a website that wants your documents, or a professional suite with a professional subscription.
Upload your documents?
Free OCR websites want your contracts, payslips and medical letters on their servers before they give the text back.
Or a subscription
Serious OCR usually lives inside a monthly PDF suite, for a job many people do a few times a month.
Crooked, upside-down pages
A phone photo at an angle or a page scanned the wrong way round comes back as gibberish from basic tools.
Columns and tables scrambled
Two-column pages read straight across and tables turn into a jumble of numbers you have to rebuild by hand.
Errors you can't find
You get a text file and no way to see which words the engine guessed, until a wrong number causes trouble.
Watermarks and page caps
Free versions stamp the result, cap the file size or stop after a page, right when you need the whole document.
Vow OCR fixes all of it.
How it works
Drop. Read. Copy.
One click from launch to a searchable PDF, a Word file and text you can check against the page.
- 01
Add your pages
Drop scans, phone photos, screenshots or PDFs on the window, paste a picture with Ctrl+V, scan from your scanner, or right-click a file in Explorer.
Drop scans, photos or PDFs and get text back - 02
Choose what you want back
Searchable PDF and Text are already selected and Word is one click away, with Markdown, web page, CSV, JSON, hOCR and ALTO below.
Drop scans, photos or PDFs and get text back - 03
Read text and check it
Press Read text. The files are saved next to the original and the page opens beside its words, with doubtful words marked for a quick check.
The three steps and what OCR keeps in your pages
Features
Professional OCR without the professional price
For offices, archives, students and anyone with a drawer full of paper: one click for the everyday job, deep settings when you need them.
Searchable PDFs
An invisible text layer placed exactly over every word. Scanned PDFs keep their original pages, bookmarks and links, and become searchable.
Word documents that make sense
Paragraphs joined, hyphenated words mended, headings, lists, tables as real Word tables and columns in reading order.
Fixes the page first
Pages are turned upright and straightened, shadows on phone photos evened out, specks and dark scanner borders removed.
120+ languages
126 languages and scripts, 12 built in, including right-to-left and vertical Chinese and Japanese. The rest download when you need them.
Check words beside the page
The page and its text side by side, doubtful words highlighted, and a click on any word shows where it is on the page.
Columns and tables kept
Automatic layout finds columns, blocks and tables, with modes for forms, receipts and single lines when you need them.
Grab text from the screen
Press the shortcut, drag a box over any text on screen, in a video, a locked PDF or an app, and it is on your clipboard.
Batches and watched folders
Read whole folders of scans in one go, or watch a scanner's folder so new scans are read by themselves.
Private by design
Everything is read on your PC with the Tesseract 5 engine. No account, no upload, and your original files are never overwritten.
Light and dark theme
Switch between a bright paper look and a dark carbon look with one click in the sidebar, or let it follow Windows.
Light & dark theme
Easy on the eyes, day or night.
OCR comes with a crisp light theme and a calm dark theme. Switch with one click, or let it follow your Windows setting by itself. It remembers your choice.
- LightClear and bright for daytime and busy offices
- DarkGentle on tired eyes late at night
- Follow WindowsChanges by itself when your PC does
Screenshots
See Vow OCR in action
Real screenshots of the real app, in both of its themes: 9 light, 9 dark. Click any picture to see it full size.
Light theme
Dark theme
Who it's for
Who turns paper into text with Vow OCR
Offices and admin
Make scanned invoices, letters and contracts searchable and copy figures straight into your systems.
Archives and records
Turn boxes of paper into searchable PDFs, with hOCR and ALTO XML for digital archives.
Legal and accounting
Search scanned bundles, statements and receipts without sending them to an outside service.
Students and researchers
Copy quotes from scanned books, articles and handouts into your notes and essays.
Receipts and expenses
Read phone photos of receipts into text and CSV for expense claims and bookkeeping.
Home paperwork
Make old letters, manuals and recipes searchable, and stop retyping what is already on paper.
Compare
Vow OCR vs the usual options
What you actually get from typical online OCR sites and subscription PDF suites, side by side.
| Feature | Vow OCR | Online OCR sites & subscription PDF suites |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free every day, or $9.95 once | Monthly or yearly subscription |
| Your documents are uploaded | Never: read on your PC | Yes, for online OCR sites |
| Searchable PDF keeps the original pages | Yes, invisible text layer | Varies |
| Crooked and upside-down pages fixed | Automatically | Often a manual step |
| Words checked beside the page | Yes, doubtful words marked | Rarely on simple tools |
| Screen grab hotkey | Included, without limit | Usually a separate tool |
| Output formats | 9, incl. hOCR and ALTO XML | Text or PDF on free tools |
| Watermarks or page caps | No watermarks; 3 free pages a document | Common on free tiers |
| Ads and bundled extras | None | Common on free downloads |
"Typical" describes what we found across the most-downloaded alternatives when we built OCR. Your mileage with any one of them may vary; ours won't.
Pricing
Free every day. Just $9.95 once for the lot.
That is not a typo. Software this powerful usually means a monthly subscription; OCR is $9.95, once, for life: it's almost a giveaway. Use it free for as long as you like, and unlock Unlimited only if you need more.
Free
$0forever
First 3 pages of every document, 10 documents a day, every text format.
- The first 3 pages of every document
- 10 documents a day (resets at midnight)
- Word, text, Markdown, HTML, CSV, JSON, hOCR, ALTO
- 1 searchable PDF a day to try it
- Screen grabs and pasted pictures without limit
- No watermarks, no sign-up, nothing uploaded
Best valueUnlimited
$9.95USD, once. Yours for life.
Almost a giveaway. Less than a takeaway lunch for software this powerful: no subscription, no renewals, yours for life on 2 PCs.
Every page, unlimited searchable PDFs, batches and watched folders.
- Every page of every document, no daily limit
- As many searchable PDFs as you like
- Whole folders of scans in one go
- Watched folders that read new scans
- Several languages at once, one payment for life
- Use it on 2 PCs, every update included
How unlocking works
- 1Use it free first Install Vow OCR and use it on your own files. No card, no account, no time limit.
- 2Click "Unlimited" in the app Pay $9.95 USD once by card, securely through Stripe in your browser.
- 3It unlocks itself Within seconds, for life, on up to 2 of your PCs. Your license key is emailed to you, and every future update is included.
Payments by Stripe: we never see or store your card. Questions? Ask a real person.
Clean software
Safe to install. Nothing else comes with it.
Most "free" Windows downloads pay for themselves with ads, bundled extras or your data. Vow OCR doesn't need to: it's paid for honestly, once, by the people who find it useful.
Download OCR free- No ads, toolbars or "offers"The installer installs one thing: Vow OCR. No pre-ticked boxes to watch out for.
- No administrator rights neededIt installs just for you, in your own user folder, and leaves the rest of Windows alone.
- Nothing running in the backgroundNo startup programs, no tray nags, no services. When you close it, it's closed.
- Everything includedAll it needs is inside the installer, so you never have to fetch a "required component" from somewhere else.
- Uninstalls cleanlyOne click in Windows Settings > Apps. Your own files are never touched.
- A real company behind itMade, published and supported by XTO Pty Ltd, an Australian company, with real people answering every message.
Step-by-step guide
How to convert a scan to searchable text on Windows
From a scan or phone photo to a searchable PDF and a Word file in under a minute, without uploading it anywhere.
Step 1: get it freeInstall Vow OCR free
Download it from this page and run the installer. It needs no administrator rights and no account, and the OCR engine and 12 languages are already inside.
Add the scan or photo
Drop the file on the window, press Ctrl+O, or paste a picture with Ctrl+V. PDFs, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIC and more work, including multi-page TIFFs.
Pick the language and output
The language starts as the one Windows uses; change it if the page is in another. Keep Searchable PDF and Text, and tick Word if you want a .docx too.
Press Read text
Press Read text or Ctrl+Enter. Pages are turned upright, straightened and cleaned, then read. The results are saved next to the original, never over it.
Check and copy
The Text page shows the page beside its words. Jump through any doubtful words, fix them, then copy the page, copy everything, or save again.
Technical details
OCR at a glance
- Works on
- Windows 10 (1809+) and Windows 11, 64-bit
- OCR engine
- Tesseract 5 (LSTM), Windows OCR optional
- Languages
- 126; 12 built in, the rest on demand
- Opens
- PDF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, WebP, HEIC, AVIF
- Saves
- Searchable PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD, HTML, CSV, JSON, hOCR, ALTO
- Scanners
- WIA scanners, straight into the app
- Internet
- Not needed: works fully offline
- Install
- Per-user, no administrator rights, no account
- Theme
- Light, dark or follow Windows: one click to switch
- Version
- 1.0.0, released 7 November 2026
- Publisher
- XTO Pty Ltd (Australia)
FAQ
Questions about OCR
Is Vow OCR free?
Yes. The first 3 pages of every document are free, for 10 documents a day, in every text format including Word, plus one searchable PDF a day to try it. Screen grabs and pasted pictures are free without limit. There are no watermarks or ads. Unlimited, a one-time $9.95 USD payment, reads every page, makes unlimited searchable PDFs, and adds batches, watched folders and several languages at once.
Does it upload my documents?
No. Every page is read on your own PC. There is no account and no cloud. The only downloads are extra languages you choose, fetched from the official Tesseract repository and checked before use.
Can it make a scanned PDF searchable?
Yes. It adds an invisible text layer exactly over every word and keeps the original pages untouched, with their bookmarks and links, so the PDF looks the same but you can search, select and copy.
Does it work on phone photos of pages?
Yes. It turns pages upright, straightens them, evens out shadows and removes specks and dark borders before reading, so a photo taken at an angle on a desk reads cleanly.
Which languages can it read?
126 languages and scripts. English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese are built in; the others download on demand. Several languages at once is part of Unlimited.
How is it different from ABBYY FineReader or Adobe Acrobat?
Those are subscription PDF suites. Vow OCR is $9.95 once for Unlimited, or free within the daily allowance, does the everyday job in one click, and reads everything on your PC. It has fewer languages than ABBYY (126) and no PDF page editing; it is built for getting text out of scans.
Can it read handwriting?
Not well. The engine is made for printed and typed text, which it reads very accurately. Handwritten notes usually come out poorly.
Is it safe to install?
Yes. It is made and published by XTO Pty Ltd, an Australian company. There are no ads, no bundled software and no account, it needs no administrator rights, and it uninstalls cleanly from Windows Settings.
The Vow collection
More apps you'll never have to go looking for
Same design, same promises, a tiny one-time price. Learn one and you already know them all.
Merge, split and reorder PDFs on your own PC
- Free: Merge 3 files at a time, split one PDF at a time, 5 saves a day
- $4.95 once: Any number of files, drag-and-drop pages, rotate, batches
Shrink any PDF to the exact size an upload form asks for
- Free: 3 PDFs a day with Light, Balanced and Strong; try every setting free
- $4.95 once: Exact target sizes, any number of PDFs, folders, full quality control
Done searching. Get OCR.
Turn scans and photos of pages into searchable PDFs, Word and text. Free to use every day, $9.95 once if you ever want Unlimited.
- No ads
- No malware
- No account
- No subscription