Agencies and studios
Photographers
Podcasters
Video and social creators
Marketers and content teams
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macOS and Windows. Your files stay on your computer.
macOS and Windows. Your files stay on your computer.
Make scanned contracts, receipts and archives searchable and copyable, while every page looks exactly the same. Pick the languages on the page and run a whole batch. Recognition happens on your computer, even for the languages you download.
0 words216 wordsReal result from the recording: 2 pages, English, searchable PDF
Intel Mac or need help installing? All downloads
Hangar runs on Mac and Windows. Open this page there to download.
The real app with a real file, recorded on screen.
Where the AI runs
Online OCR means uploading scans of contracts, invoices and IDs. Hangar reads them on your computer, page by page, with nothing sent.
Scanned or mixed PDFs, one or a whole folder of them.
Tesseract runs inside Hangar. English is built in; other languages download once.
A copy ending in -ocr.pdf that looks the same, with text you can search and copy. A TXT file too, if you want one.
Upload to a serverNot part of the path. Your file and the result never leave this computer.
Languages
Ready the moment you install.
Best for: English documents, from day one.
Add only the languages your documents use.
Best for: French, German, Spanish, Hindi, Japanese and the rest.
Recognition runs with Tesseract inside Hangar. Each language downloads once, is checked, and stays on this computer.
Hard cases
Recognition is only as good as the scan. Pages that already have text are skipped by default.
In the run in the recording, it read 97% of the words on a two-page scan correctly. Clear scans read best.
Even light and a straight page help. Shadows and steep angles cost words.
Not what this recognizer is built for. Expect gaps.
Check the ones that matter, such as amounts and reference numbers.
How it works
Drop one scan or a whole batch. Pages that already have real text are left alone, so mixed files are fine.
English is built in. Other languages are a one-time download, and you can tick several for documents that mix them.
Each searchable copy is saved with -ocr in its name, with an optional .txt of the text beside it. Your original scan is untouched.
New to Hangar? How to run a tool, step by step
Choose the detail
Detail sets how closely each page is read. Higher levels pick up small print better and take longer, so start with Standard and step up only when a scan needs it.
Reads each page at 300 DPI.
Best for normal letters, contracts and reports.
Reads each page at 400 DPI.
Best for footnotes, receipts and dense tables.
Reads each page at 600 DPI.
Best for very small print, when speed matters less.
Every setting, explained in the OCR PDF guide Languages · Re-OCR everything · Detail · Export recognized text
The alternative
Acrobat Pro reads scans well and lets you edit the recognized text, which Hangar does not. If all you need is searchable scans, you pay every year for much more than that.
Adobe Acrobat Pro: Adobe’s plans and privacy pages, checked June 2026.See the full comparison
Who uses it
Find a clause or a name in a scanned agreement instead of reading every page.
Copy totals and invoice numbers straight from scanned receipts and delivery notes.
Turn years of scanned papers and records into files your computer’s search can find.
One app, one payment
The same app merges, splits, signs, redacts and reads scanned PDFs, and does the same kind of work for images, video and audio. One payment covers every tool.
Save it as a chain
Make the scan searchable first. Then Redact can find every name, and Compress shrinks the clean copy before you share it.
How chains workEvery tool is free for 3 days, with no account and no card. After that, Hangar is a one-time payment from $45, with updates for the version you buy. There is no subscription.
Not reliably. OCR PDF is made for printed and typed text, and handwritten notes usually come out wrong or are skipped.
No. The scan itself stays exactly as it is. For the best text, scan straight, evenly lit pages at 300 DPI or more.
No. The recognized text sits in an invisible layer over the image, so the page looks exactly as it did while becoming searchable and selectable.
English is built in, and other languages download the first time you pick them. You can select several at once for documents that mix languages.
No, unless you turn on Re-OCR everything. Digital pages are left as they are, so only the scanned pages get a new text layer.
No. Your files are processed on your computer and never sent anywhere. Hangar sends anonymous usage counts to improve the app, never file names or contents, and you can turn that off in Settings.
Yes. A license works on any mix of Mac and Windows computers. Solo covers 1 computer, Crew 3 and Fleet 10.
Then pay once, from $45, for every tool and the updates for your version. No subscription. 30-day refund.See plans
Intel Mac or need help installing? All downloads
Hangar runs on Mac and Windows. Open this page there to download.