I will guide you through the key features, user interface, my experience, pricing, and pros and cons to give some insights into whether this PDF editing software is worth its price.

I tested 30+ PDF editors on the market to find the best ones. In this article, I will share an honest EaseUS PDF Editor review to see if it is among the top PDF tools, and ultimately save you the time and money of testing it for yourself.

Let’s dive in!

Verdict

Here’s the quick verdict if you don’t want to read the full review:

Tested with our review & scoring methodology Real-world testing Unbiased evaluation

How We Test PDF Editors

To keep our reviews and final scores fair and consistent, we evaluate every PDF editor using a standardized testing framework built on over 3 years of hands-on experience testing these tools in real-world scenarios.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 30+ PDF editors:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of EaseUS PDF Editor

What is EaseUS PDF Editor?

EaseUS is an international software company specializing in data recovery, data backup, and disk management tools since 2004. One of their products is EaseUS PDF Editor, which I will shortly introduce you to in this review.

It is an all-in-one PDF software to read, edit, annotate, and convert your documents. EaseUS PDF Editor is available on Windows and Mac as well.

My experience with EaseUS PDF Editor

EaseUS PDF has an intuitive interface and some useful tools for editing and reading PDF files. This tool is very simple.

You can find all the tools you need, whether it is OCR or annotation tools, in seconds. When testing EaseUS PDF Editor, I did not notice any performance issues even when I worked with larger PDF documents.

The features that mostly stand out for me were the editing, OCR, and encryption tools. I only missed the built-in AI tools when using EaseUS PDF Editor’s desktop version. Also, it does not have a mobile version, which would probably be useful for some of you.

To summarize, I had an excellent experience with EaseUS PDF, and it is ultimately an affordable alternative to Adobe Acrobat for small and mid-sized businesses and individuals.

Why EaseUS PDF Editor get a 4.6 / 5

EaseUS PDF Editor offered a solid feature set whenever I tested it in the past two years. It has outstanding PDF editing features, an OCR function, and gets solid scores for conversion and form creating/filing as well.

EaseUS PDF Editor only lost one star for its PDF reading features and annotation tools. While these also worked smoothly during my EaseUS PDF editor review, they were not as outstanding as the previously mentioned features.

Who gets the most value from EaseUS PDF Editor

When EaseUS PDF Editor might not work for you

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

Key Features

Stay here, because I will show you some of the key features I tried during my EaseUS PDF Editor review!

Let’s dive into EaseUS PDF Editor’s key features!

PDF reading

EaseUS PDF Editor offers solid reading features. You can choose from different layout options, such as single-page view or two-page view, and have a dedicated mode for reading e-books. 

Additionally, it enables you to smoothly rotate and zoom your pages, allowing you to read your documents with ease.

In addition, it has a “search and replace” feature that is useful to find the term you are looking for and quickly replace it with a few clicks.

Ultimately, EaseUS PDF Editor offers outstanding PDF viewing features, which justify its place on my list of best PDF readers.

PDF editor

When it comes to PDF editing, EaseUS PDF Editor has all the tools you need to customize your documents. With a few clicks, you can add, edit, and remove text with this PDF software.

If you click on the text, you can choose from various text formats, styles, sizes, and colors. EaseUS PDF Editor utilizes drag-and-drop features, allowing you to easily move text boxes and images around.

Similar to the text boxes, you can easily add, move, and edit images as well with EaseUS PDF editor. Besides, you can adjust the size of the images if you click on the image.

One of the special features of EaseUS PDF Editor is the ability to change the background. It allows you to change, add, and remove the background from your PDF files.

Overall, I was satisfied with EaseUS PDF Editor’s editing features. Not only from a features perspective, but I appreciated the ease-of-use as well.

Compared to some other popular PDF editors like Adobe Acrobat or Foxit, I found that EaseUS PDF Editor delivers the same or even advanced capabilities for significantly less money.

Annotate PDF documents

Annotation tools are pretty essential when reviewing documents, particularly if you work in a team. So, during my EaseUS PDF editor review, I took a closer look at these features!

When testing EaseUS PDF Editor, I discovered that you can smoothly draw, add lines, shapes, highlights, and stamps to your PDF documents. You also have the option to choose the color of the highlights.

Furthermore, you can add comments and callouts, which are helpful when adding comments to your team members.

A small thing I missed here is that you can not add audio notes to your PDF files. Sometimes, if I do not have enough time for the review, I love to leave audio comments, but I did not find this feature.

Ultimately, EaseUS PDF Editor features solid annotation tools, making it an ideal choice for teams as well.

Organizing PDFs

If you click on the “Page” tab on the top toolbar, you can access the PDF organization features. Here, you can change the order of the pages, replace, split, extract, and merge them.

I especially found the EaseUS PDF Editor’s merging feature helpful. Using this tool, you can merge PDF files and images into one PDF file, which makes it easy to share, structure, and search in your document.

Moreover, if you work a lot with PDF documents, you will love the splitting feature. With this feature, you can extract the pages you need from a large PDF document.

After testing 30+ PDF editors, I can safely say that EaseUS has the top PDF organizing features.

PDF form filling and signatures

Although I don’t create PDF forms frequently, I wanted to check on it, as I know this can be essential for some of you. Let’s see what I found!

Using EaseUS PDF editor, you can create fillable forms or questionnaires with EaseUS PDF. You can add items like text fields, check boxes, drop-down menus, and more. Also, it lets you export and import data to fill more PDF forms with one click.

If you want to create a form, just click on the “Form” menu at the top toolbar, and you can create your own questionnaire or PDF form.

Now, it’s time to see the signing features!

EaseUS PDF Editor allows you to create your signature by drawing, typing, or importing it. It’s pretty fast and straightforward to generate your first e-signature.

You can also sign your documents with your digital ID, which shows the location, date, time, and more. I loved that you can create more signatures & manage them under one tab.

Using its signature management features, you can add different types of signatures, and even for other people, which makes it an ideal e-signature solution. 

Based on my experience, the signing is pretty simple, and EaseUS offers many possibilities to easily manage the document signing.

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

PDF encryption

PDF protection is key, as these documents can include your or others’ sensitive data. What I normally look for when testing the PDF encryption feature is the level of encryption and options.

I was glad to see that you can add an open and permission password as well. With these features, you can customize who can view, copy, edit, or print your document. In addition, you can decrypt your documents easily.

Furthermore, you can decide if you want to protect your PDF files with RC4 or AES technology. As a rule of thumb, the AES is a more secure choice as it offers superior protection.

With EaseUS PDF Editor, you can also add watermarks to your documents. You can choose from text and image formats, and offer many options to customize them.

EasUS PDF Editor lets you freely set its rotation, opacity, size, location, and position. However, if you want to remove it, you can do it with a few clicks.

To wrap up the PDF protection features, I think EaseUS PDF Editor did a great job.

OCR feature

EaseUS PDF Editor offers an accurate OCR feature compared to other PDF software. It supports 29 languages, including English, French, and German.

During my EaseUSD PDF Editor review, I used it for English text and provided quite good output. I selected the enhanced mode, which is more accurate than the standard mode but takes longer.

You still need to make some minor adjustments to your scanned PDF when using the OCR feature, especially regarding formats.

Yet, based on my experience, EaseUS PDF Editor has a more accurate OCR feature than 90% of PDF editors. After testing 30+ PDF editors’ OCR feature, only PDNob and ABBYY FineReader PDF provided a similar accuracy level.

Related article:

• 6 Best OCR Software For 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested Tools

Converting PDFs

You can convert your PDF documents into 10+ file formats, including Word, Excel, PNG, and more. When converting PDFs, it took 20-30 seconds to get the format I selected.

By clicking on the “Convert” tab, you can access these tools efficiently. Just select the format you want to get, and that’s it.

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

Compressing PDF files

The compression feature of EaseUS PDF Editor is a helpful functionality, and it works pretty well. You only need to add the file you want to compress and select the level of compression.

The way that you can adjust the compression level is super useful, as it gives you the flexibility to find the perfect balance between size and quality.

Overall, I was satisfied with the compression feature in the course of my EaseUS PDF Editor review.

EaseUS PDF Editor user interface

EaseUS PDF Editor has a simple user interface. On the home tab, you find the latest documents you worked with. If you click on the “Tools”, you can select the feature you want to use for your documents.

When working in a PDF document, it is easy to navigate among the features, and I felt the whole user experience was intuitive.

EaseUS PDF Editor pricing

EaseUS’s monthly plan is $19.95, while the yearly plan is $49.95. They include one license for one computer and 1-year free upgrades. If you go for the lifetime upgrades, it will cost you $79.95.

With all these plans, you will have access to all EaseUS features, including the OCR tools.

Overall, EaseUS is currently one of the cheapest PDF editors on the market.

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

Pros and cons I discovered during my EaseUS PDF Editor review

After my EaseUS PDF Editor review, I found these pros and cons you should know about this PDF software.

EaseUS PDF Editor’s pros

First and foremost, EaseUS PDF Editor is an affordable PDF software. Compared to most of the PDF editors on the market, especially Adobe Acrobat, you can get this PDF software at a very reasonable price.

Secondly, it is an easy-to-use PDF editor. You can smoothly edit your PDFs and access the tools you need.

In addition, I did not experience any performance issues when using EaseUS PDF Editor, even when working with larger PDF files.

Moreover, EaseUS PDF Editor did a great job when it comes to the OCR features. For me, it is among the top OCR tools currently.

Lastly, it has advanced PDF protection features. You can set open and permission passwords, select the encryption algorithm, and add or remove watermarks.

EaseUS PDF Editor’s cons

One of the disadvantages of EaseUS PDF editor is the lack of a mobile version. It would be useful if you could access its features on iOS and Android.

Furthermore, I missed the built-in AI features when using EaseUS PDF Editor on my PC’s desktop app.

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

Wrap-up: EaseUS PDF Editor review

To wrap it up, I think EaseUS PDF Editor is currently one of the best PDF software, and it has not accidentally made it to my lists of best PDF editors and best PDF readers. And again, it is not only an excellent but budget-friendly option as well if you need a top PDF editor.

Related articles:

• The 8 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives: 30+ PDF Editors Tested
• 6 Best OCR Software For 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested Tools
• 6 Best PDF Converter For 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested Tools

Hope I was able to help you find the best PDF editor for you. As always, I will update this EaseUS PDF Editor review over time so you guys have up-to-date information about this PDF software.

EaseUS PDF Editor alternatives

If you feel like EaseUS PDF Editor is not the perfect one for you, here are the best alternatives:

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently asked questions

Is EaseUS PDF Editor any good?

EaseUS PDF Editor is among the best PDF software considering its features and pricing. I had an absolutely positive experience with this PDF editing software, and I can recommend it.

Which PDF editor is best?

There are numerous powerful PDF editors, and the question of which one is the best ultimately depends on your preferences and budget.

However, I collected the best PDF editors I tried so far in this article:The 9 Best PDF Editors In 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested PDF Tools

Is there a fully free PDF editor?

While EaseUS PDF editor has a solid free plan, you need to purchase its paid plans if you need the more advanced features. If you want to use a completely free PDF editor, take a look at PDFgear.

Although it does not have as many advanced features as EaseUS PDF Editor, you can access numerous tools with PDFgear, which is normally included in the paid plans.

Can I edit a PDF without Adobe?

In addition to Adobe Acrobat, many other PDF tools offer a wide array of tools for PDF editing. In fact, some PDF editors, including EaseUS PDF Editor, provide similar or even better features than Adobe Acrobat for much less money.

Related articles:

• Adobe Acrobat Review: What Nobody Tells You (2026)
• Adobe Acrobat Pricing In 2026 | Why I Regret Buying It
• The 7 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives: 30+ PDF Editors Tested

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

thebusinessdive.com

The post EaseUS PDF Editor Review 2026 | My Unfiltered Opinion appeared first on .

No worries, I did this for you. After personally testing 30+ possible alternatives, I decided to collect the best OCR software.

In this article, I will guide you through each OCR software’s key features, pricing, my experience, and pros and cons.

Let’s dive in!

Which OCR software is the best in 2026?

When compiling my list of the best OCR software, I considered the accuracy of its optical character recognition (OCR) tool, other relevant features such as PDF editing, my experience, and pricing.

Based on these criteria, some of the OCR software I picked are not only a simple OCR tool, but a PDF editor as well. Also, experience shows me that people who are looking for an OCR software actually need a PDF editor with more advanced OCR tools.

Therefore, I not only focused on OCR accuracy, but also on other workflows. While I can not summarize all my findings in this table, this will help you get an overview of each OCR software’s use cases.

Here are the top 6 OCR software in 2026:

OCR tools	Overall score	My top picks
	Rating: 5 out of 5.	Best overall OCR software
	Rating: 4.5 out of 5.	Best budget-friendly OCR solution
	Rating: 4 out of 5.	A solid OCR software
	Rating: 4 out of 5.	An easy-to-use OCR software
	Rating: 3.5 out of 5.	Best Free OCR software
	Rating: 3.5 out of 5.	Best OCR software for businesses

Best OCR tools in 2026

Now, let’s see a more detailed breakdown of the best OCR software in 2026!

Best overall OCR software

PDNob is an OCR software & AI-powered PDF editor with numerous features for document management and scanning. For me, it provided the most accurate OCR when testing it with various documents.

PDNob’s OCR solution

PDNob has an artificial intelligence-powered OCR feature that helps you extract editable text from images and PDFs with machine learning. Just a quick heads-up: this OCR feature works without an internet connection.

You can find the OCR feature on the top sidebar. It supports 20+ languages, including English, French, German, and Chinese. You can either scan your document into editable text or searchable text in an image.

As you can see, once PDNob recognizes the scanned text, you can edit the parts of your documents. You can change the size, fonts, etc., in the recognized text with a few clicks.

Although it does not offer 100% accuracy, like no OCR tool does, I experienced 95% plus accuracy, which was the highest when searching for the best OCR software.

Use the above link and the discount code TS-TBD-20 to get 20% OFF on the paid plans.

PDNob’s other features

Pricing

PDNob offers a one-week free trial. You can access 50 AI Credits, 2 GB cloud storage, and the ability to upload 120 pages per file, and the size has to be below 15MB. With the free trial, you edit and organize your PDFs, but it will include watermarks.

That said, it is only ideal to test this OCR software’s capabilities and features.

The monthly plan’s regular price is $49.99. However, PDFNob is running a campaign, so you can get it for $14.99. It covers 100 AI credits/month, one month of free updates, 20 GB of cloud storage, and no watermarks.

Also, if you want to utilize the AI image translator, it is $15.95 monthly, no matter which plan you choose.

The one-year license’s original price is $79.99, but you can get it for $35.99 now. Essentially, it offers the same features as the PDNob PDF editor in its monthly plan.

Considering that this is a way cheaper option if we break down the price monthly, I recommend going with this plan if you are satisfied with the PDNob PDF editor.

Finally, the PDNob PDF editor has lifetime access for $349.95. Its current price is $69.99, and it offers lifetime access to all the features. It’s also great that it covers the updates, as most of the time, you have to buy those separately.

Use the above link and the discount code TS-TBD-20 to get 20% OFF on the paid plans.

My experience with PDNob

Using the OCR and converting features was super smooth, and I had almost zero learning curve to utilize such features. They were fast, easy to use, and did not encounter any issues.

As for its OCR technology specifically, it has high accuracy and supports various languages. Based on my experience, it has more advanced features than most of the OCR software you can find on the market.

Regarding the rest of its features, PDNob offers a wide range of PDF editing and annotation tools for document management. With its easy-to-use tools and user-friendly interface, I had almost zero learning curve with this PDF editor.

To summarize, I had an absolutely positive experience with the PDNob, and I recommend it to those who need a simple yet effective solution for optical character recognition and PDF management.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Tenorshare PDNob

PDNob’s pros and cons

Use the above link and the discount code TS-TBD-20 to get 20% OFF from the paid plans.

Best budget-friendly OCR solution

EaseUS PDF is an affordable PDF editor and OCR software for Windows and Mac. It has an accurate OCR feature and offers many advanced features for PDF editing and document management.

Let’s take a quick look at its OCR technology and how it works!

EaseUS PDF’s OCR solution

EaseUS PDF’s OCR tool helps you to extract text and convert image files to PDF documents. You can access this feature if you open a PDF document, but you can also use it straight from its tools menu.

Once you open the OCR tool, you need to choose the recognition mode, language, output format, and saving path. I loved that EaseUS PDF took a step ahead and offered the option to convert the PDF into a Word document at the same time.

EaseUS PDF converted the scanned images into editable text with high accuracy. Based on my experience, it has around 90% accuracy, but I noticed that sometimes it does not use the right format for different words. For instance, if you check the last sentence of the picture, you can see that there is a word with a different text format.

However, EaseUS PDF still has one of the best OCR engines, and saves a lot of time by almost completely eliminating the manual data entry.

EaseUS PDF’s other features

Pricing

EaseUS’s monthly plan is $19.95, while the yearly plan is $49.95. They include one license for one computer and 1-year free upgrades. If you go for the lifetime upgrades, it will cost you $79.95.

With all of these plans, you will access all the features of EaseUS, including the OCR tools.

Overall, EaseUS is currently one of the cheapest PDF editors on the market.

If there is a chance that you need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and the code of THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to get 20% OFF if you would fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

My experience with EaseUS PDF

EaseUS PDF has an intuitive interface and some useful tools for editing and reading PDF files. This tool is very simple.

You can find all the tools you need, whether it is OCR or annotation tools, in seconds. Furthermore, I did not notice any performance issues even when I worked with larger PDF documents.

When using its OCR feature, I had a positive experience. Yes, it does not always hit the right format, but as for the accuracy, it was better than Abbyy Finereader.

There is one major limitation when using EaseUS PDF. It lacks a mobile version, so you can only utilize it on a PC.

All things considered, I had a good experience with EaseUS PDF, and it is ultimately an affordable PDF editor & OCR software for businesses and individuals as well.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of EaseUS PDF Editor

EaseUS PDF’s pros and cons

If you think you may need the advanced features, use the above link for signup and enter the code THEBUSINESSDIVE20 to receive 20% OFF if you fall in love with EaseUS PDF later.

A solid OCR software

ABBYY FineReader is one of the most popular OCR software applications. I read that some people say it is the best OCR software currently, so I wanted to see if it’s true.

Let’s see what I found when testing ABBYY FineReader!

ABBYY FineReader’s OCR solution

ABBYY FineReader has a solid OCR tool. But to be fully honest, I expected a bit more from it, as this software focuses almost completely on OCR technology.

You can process documents very easily with this OCR software and support 48 languages. Once you are done with the document scanning, ABBYY FineReader will recognize the text and convert it into editable text.

I experience its accuracy around 80%, and encountered some misformatting, like the text highlighting in the above picture.

When testing ABBYY FineReader, I appreciated that you can easily manage a large number of OCR tasks, but I was not completely satisfied with the accuracy.

ABBYY FineReader’s other features

Pricing

ABBYY FineReader offers yearly, 3-yearly, and monthly subscription plans. If we take a look at the yearly plan, Windows users can get it for €99 yearly, while Mac users can purchase it for €69.

The ABBYY FineReader PDF Standard for Windows has all the features from OCR to PDF editing. However, the Mac version offers many fewer tools, so you can only use it for OCR purposes.

It also has a Corporate plan for €165 yearly, which includes some extra features for a large number of tasks for OCR.

My experience with ABBYY FineReader

ABBYY FineReader earned its spot among the best OCR software, but I had some mixed feelings as well. Let’s start with the good ones!

This PDF editor was designed for OCR tasks and has solid features. It works fast and has a minimal learning curve.

However, I had some issues with the accuracy and formatting when utilizing its OCR tools. For me, PDNob and EaseUS PDF offered more accurate outputs and way fewer formatting issues.

Ultimately, ABBYY FineReader is a massive OCR software, and while I do not think it has the most accurate OCR technology, it is definitely among the top ones.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of ABBYY FineReader PDF

ABBYY FineReader’s pros and cons

An easy-to-use OCR software

PDFelement is a powerful PDF editor with an intuitive interface and an easy-to-use OCR feature. It offers a desktop app for Windows and Mac, and a mobile version for Android & iOS devices.

PDFelement’s OCR solution

If you click on the “Tool>OCR” button in the top toolbar, you can easily access the OCR feature of PDFelement. This OCR software supports over 20 languages, and you can select the page range for the OCR.

You can either convert the scanned documents into searchable or editable files. So, you have many customization options.

As for the accuracy, I experienced around an 85% accuracy rate, which is solid. The process of turning the scanned documents into editable ones is quite fast, and you can do it with a few clicks.

PDFelement’s other features

Pricing

You can get the yearly plan for $79.99 per user. The yearly plan includes no watermark, 1-year access to all features, 1-year of PDFelement updates, and Free 20GB PDFelement Cloud storage. These plans also cover free customer support.

In addition to the yearly plan, you can purchase a 2-year plan for $109.99. With the 2-year plan, you can get the latest version of PDFelement for 2 years, 2-year access to all features, and 100GB PDFelement Cloud storage.

You can also buy the perpetual license, which costs a one-time fee of $129.99. With the perpetual license, you get access to all features, as well as 20GB of PDFelement Cloud storage. However, if there are updates in the future for the next versions, you will need to pay to get all the new features.

In terms of the business plan, the annual plan for one user is $109.9, while the lifetime license is $139. If you want to purchase PDFelement for more than 10 users, I recommend reaching out to them, as they may give you volume discounts.

Based on a common practice in the PDF editor space, if you want to use the AI tools without limits, you need to buy them for $3.99 / month. There are also discounts for students.

Overall, PDFelement is among the cheaper PDF editors.

My experience with PDFelement

PDFelement has accurate OCR technology, and it has helped a lot with cutting the time-consuming tasks of manually extracting text from documents.

When it comes to its PDF editing features, it is a generally easy-to-use tool. Numerous times, I worked with longer PDF files in parallel, but I did not experience any performance issues, which is quite common with many PDF editors.

All in all, I had a very positive experience with PDFelement, which offered great value in managing my PDF files.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Wondershare PDFelement

PDFelement’s pros and cons

Best free OCR software

PDFgear is a 100% free PDF editor and OCR software. It is available on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, but you can access some useful document management tools online as well.

This tool is particularly useful for individuals who need OCR or PDF editing occasionally. Let’s take a closer look at PDFgear’s OCR features!

PDFgear’s OCR solution

PDFgear has an easy-to-use OCR feature to extract text from images and scanned documents. I especially valued that it has an in-built AI feature, which can also help in the OCR tasks.

When it comes to accuracy, it was okay; I experienced that around 80% of the output was correct. Once PDFgear recognizes the text, you can make edits in your PDFs.

PDFgear supports 30+ languages for text recognition, so it is quite versatile. And most importantly, you can use the OCR feature without a watermark or a sneaky “upgrade to pro” pop-up.

To wrap it up, PDFgear does not provide the most accurate OCR technology, but if you need the PDF editing & OCR tools only occasionally, I believe it is the best free OCR software.

PDFgear’s other features

Pricing

It is a completely free PDF editor & OCR software.

My experience with PDFgear

PDFgear is a straightforward PDF editor that offers all the essential editing features to effectively manage PDF documents. When using PDFgear, I did not experience any performance issues. Moreover, it was great that you could give commands to the AI co-pilot, making your processes more efficient.

Furthermore, it has a decent OCR feature that you can use completely free, as normally the OCR-related features are part of the paid plans.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of PDFgear

PDFgear’s pros and cons

Best OCR software for businesses

Nanonets is an AI-powered document processing, workflow automation, and OCR app to extract valuable data from documents. You can use it to extract text from bank statements, invoices, ID cards, and many more.

Let’s see how it works in real life!

Nanonets’s OCR solution

In terms of OCR technology, Nanonets specializes in invoices, purchase orders, ID cards, passports, receipts, and similar documents. So, it offers a much narrower circle of use cases than the other OCR software in this list.

Nonetheless, if you are looking for an OCR software for exactly these workflows, Nanonets is the best. It is almost 100% accurate and can easily extract text from the uploaded documents.

As you can see, it extracted all the data correctly. I had to remove some of the text from the picture, as it includes some sensitive data, but believe me, it was accurate.

The document processing takes around 20-30 seconds, and after that, you can easily extract and modify the text of the documents.

Nanonets’s other features

Pricing

Nanonets offers two pricing plans.

The billing is based on the number of times each block runs in your workflow. For instance, if a lookup block processes 10 rows in a table, that counts as 10 runs. It means you have to pay = (Number of runs × Block price).

Opting for the Pay as You Go plan, you start with $200 in credits, and you will pay based on your usage. Nevertheless, it’s a bit tricky to find out how much you have to pay.

In addition, if you use some add-ons, you have to pay for them as well.

For the Credits Accelerate plan, you have to reach out to Nanonets’ sales team. Here, they apply volume-based pricing.

My experience with Nanonets

Nanonets is a top tool for workflow automation. While one of its strengths is the almost 100% OCR accuracy, it is also a weakness, as it works only with certain document types, mostly relevant to businesses.

As far as I see it, it is an ideal choice for both large and small businesses, but it will not work out for individuals who need an OCR tool for more use cases. Essentially, this is the primary reason I gave it 3.5 out of 5.

If Nanonets supported more use cases, I would definitely give it more stars.

Nanonets’ pros and cons

Summary: The best OCR software in 2026

After testing more than thirty OCR software, I found these to be the best ones in 2026. Although there are many options on the market, I think these tools earned their spots in this list. However, feel free to add your thoughts in the comments. I am happy to hear what you think, or if I missed a tool.

Related articles:

• The 6 Best PDF Readers For 2026 (Only FREE Options)
• 6 Best PDF Converter For 2026 | 30+ Personally Tested Tools

I hope I was able to find the best OCR software in 2026. As always, I will keep updating this list to ensure it reflects reality.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best OCR right now?

There are many excellent OCR tools for document processing, scanning, and extracting data. For me, currently, PDNOB, EaseUS PDF, PDFelement, Abbyy FineReader, and PDFgear are the best OCR software.

To be fully transparent, I also considered other features when selecting my best picks, which you would need besides OCR, such as PDF editing.

What is better than Tesseract?

Tesseract is a great tool to extract text from handwritten documents. If you want something similar without PDF editing features, I can recommend Abby FineReader, EasyOCR, ReadIris, or Nanonets.

What is the most widely used application of OCR?

Probably, most people use Adobe Acrobat Pro for extracting data from images or handwritten documents. Although it is a solid option for data extraction, it is a pricey option.

What is the best free OCR software?

Both PDFgear and Microsoft Lens are solid options if you need a free OCR software to transform your documents into searchable PDFs.

Here, you can check out a short how-to guide on how to convert images into editable text: How to Easily Convert PDF to Word for Text Editing?

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links through which, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

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