If all you have is a scan or a phone photo of your resume, you can't edit it — it's an image, not text. On-device OCR (optical character recognition) reads the words out of the image so you can paste them into Word and rebuild an editable, up-to-date resume. It runs in your browser, so your details never leave your device.
Why can't I edit a scanned resume?
A scan or photo is just an image of your resume — the computer sees pixels, not words. To edit it, you first have to extract the text with OCR, which recognises the characters in the image and turns them back into selectable, editable text.
How to extract the text with OCR
Use Image to Text — drop in the scan or photo and it recognises the words on your own device, with nothing uploaded. Copy the extracted text into Word or Google Docs and re-apply your formatting.
Getting the best OCR result
- Use the clearest, highest-resolution scan or photo you have.
- Make sure it's straight and evenly lit — not skewed, blurry, or shadowed.
- Plain printed resumes read far better than heavily-designed or handwritten ones.
- Expect to fix a few characters and rebuild the layout by hand — OCR gives you the text, not the design.
If your resume is a scanned PDF
A multi-page scanned PDF works the same way — OCR pulls the text out so you can rebuild it in Word. Once it's a proper editable document again, convert it back to PDF to send.
Why do this on your device?
Your resume holds your name, address, phone number, and full work history — exactly what you don't want sitting on a converter's server. On-device OCR keeps it private. For the wider workflow, see how to convert a resume to PDF.