Merge scanned PDFs — any size, no limits
Scanned PDFs are regular PDF files. Drop them all at once and merge in seconds.
Drop your scanned PDF files here
Scanned PDFs, scanner output, photo PDFs — any size, no limits
Scanned documents, photos of pages, scanner output — combine any PDFs, no upload
Scanned PDFs are regular PDF files. Drop them all at once and merge in seconds.
A scanned PDF is simply a PDF where the pages are images (JPEGs or PNGs embedded in the PDF container) rather than text. From a merging standpoint, scanned PDFs and text PDFs behave identically — they can be combined in any order, with any mix of scanned and text pages. PDFree handles both without any special configuration.
Drop your scanned PDFs into the tool above, arrange the order, and click Merge. The result is a standard PDF file that opens in any PDF viewer.
Scanned PDFs are typically larger than text PDFs because each page is stored as a full-resolution image. A 300 DPI scan of an A4 page is roughly 1–3 MB per page — a 100-page scanned document could be 100–300 MB. PDFree has no file size limit because processing happens in your browser, not on a server. The only limit is your device's available RAM.
After merging scanned PDFs, you may want to run OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to make the text selectable and searchable. PDFree's OCR tool (pdfree.io/ocr-pdf/) can process the merged file entirely in your browser — no upload needed. OCR adds a transparent text layer over each scanned page, so the original scan remains visible while the text becomes searchable and copyable.
Recommended workflow for scanned documents:
Scanned pages are stored as full-resolution images (300 DPI scan = ~1–3 MB per page). Use pdfree.io/compress-pdf/ after merging to reduce the file size — compression works especially well on image-heavy scanned PDFs, often reducing file size by 50–70%.
Yes. PDFree merges any combination of scanned and text PDFs. The output preserves each page exactly as-is — scanned pages remain images and text pages remain selectable text.
No page limit. PDFree processes files locally in your browser. The practical limit is your device's available RAM — modern devices handle hundreds of scanned pages without issue.
Yes — drag the files into your preferred order before clicking Merge. Each file appears as a separate entry; you can rearrange them by dragging.
Run the merged PDF through pdfree.io/ocr-pdf/ — the OCR tool adds a searchable text layer to scanned pages while keeping the original scan visible.