Improve Readability of a Blurry or Scanned PDF
A scanned PDF is really a stack of photographs, which is why the text in one can look soft or smeared while a normally generated PDF stays razor sharp at any zoom. This tool renders every page at high resolution, applies contrast normalisation and an unsharp mask to tighten up the letterforms, then reassembles the pages into a new PDF. It works best on genuinely scanned material — faxes, photographed contracts, old photocopies — and processes files up to 10 MB and 20 pages. It cannot recover text that the scanner never resolved in the first place, but soft, low-contrast, or washed-out scans typically improve a lot.
How it works
Upload your PDF file (up to 10 MB, max 20 pages).
Each page is rendered at high resolution and enhanced using sharpening and contrast filters.
Download your improved PDF with cleaner, more readable text.
Why use this tool
Improves readability of scanned PDFs without expensive software.
Works on fax printouts, photographed contracts, and low-quality scans.
No installation required — processes in your browser.
Results are returned directly to you — files are not retained.
If the result is not what you expected
My PDF is over 10 MB or longer than 20 pages
Split it into smaller sections first and process each one — ilovepdf.com has a free split tool that handles this. Large scanned PDFs are usually large because each page is a high-resolution image, so splitting by page range works better than trying to compress first.
The text looks the same as before
Check whether the PDF is actually a scan. If you can select and copy the text with your cursor, it is a digital PDF and the text is already vector-sharp — any blurriness you are seeing is a rendering artifact of your PDF viewer, not the file, and zooming in will confirm it. This tool only helps image-based PDFs.
The output file is much bigger than the original
Expected. Each page is re-rendered at high resolution before being re-embedded, which trades file size for legibility. If the result needs to fit an upload limit, compress it afterwards with a PDF compressor, or process only the pages you actually need.
Some pages improved and others got worse
Sharpening amplifies whatever is there, including scanner noise and JPEG artifacts on already-degraded pages. If a specific page came out worse, extract that page as an image and run it through Clean Up Scanned Document, which removes noise before boosting contrast rather than after.
Frequently asked questions
- This tool is most effective on scanned or image-based PDFs. If your PDF contains selectable text (not a scan), the text is already sharp — no enhancement needed.
- Maximum 10 MB and 20 pages. For larger files, try splitting the PDF first and process each part separately.
- It may. Processing produces high-quality images per page before recompiling the PDF. The output may be larger than the input.
- Split the PDF into smaller parts first (ilovepdf.com has a free split tool), then process each part here. Alternatively, use the Fix Blurry Image Text tool on individual page screenshots.