Smallpdf won’t let me edit a PDF because it’s scanned or locked — how can I convert it to editable?

If you scan your PDF, it turns into a picture, so Smallpdf needs to run OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on it before you can change the text.

The "PDF to Word with OCR" tool in Smallpdf lets you do this right away. It takes scanned content and turns it into editable text.

If there is a password on the file, you need to use Smallpdf's Unlock PDF tool first. However, you can only use this tool if you know the password.

You can turn it into Word or use the Edit PDF tool to make changes once it's opened.

Do you have another way to solve it? We'd love to hear from you in the comments.