PDF24 and Sejda: one synthetic Browser OCR check each

Test date: 3 October 2026. Validation recorded 2026-10-03T09:26:27Z. The validation timestamp is not a measured run duration or a vendor build date.

Observed result

Both downloaded single-page PDFs contained extractable text and matched COPPER-FALCON-742, ZX-1048 and 239.40 in local PyMuPDF searches. The image-only input had no extractable text or marker hits. Both output symbol rows differed from the source. No accuracy percentage, overall winner, editing-quality result or tested exact match is established.

Input provenance and settings

PDF24 received the source PNG. Sejda received a one-page image-only PDF with exactly the same decoded RGB pixels. The original page is 1654 × 2339 pixels, 200 dpi, clean English synthetic text, with no personal or customer information. The different PNG/PDF wrappers can affect processing and page size.

PDF24: English, PDF output; background removal, rotate, deskew, clean, force OCR and combine unchecked. Sejda: English, PDF and Text outputs, recognize all pages. Sejda returned an original ZIP containing a PDF and text file.

Exact symbol examples

Source

Symbols: + - = ( ) [ ] % & @ #

PDF24 Poppler PDF extraction

Symbols: +-=()[]1%*&@#

Sejda Poppler PDF extraction

Symbols:      +-=()[]*%*&              @#

Whitespace depends on the extractor. The symbol differences require review; they do not establish either tool's general error rate.

Method and limits

Remote Chrome Browser session; vendor web build numbers, OS build and hardware were not independently established. Poppler rendering and visual inspection, Poppler/PyMuPDF/pypdf extraction and PyMuPDF marker-search rectangles were checked. This was one clean English page and one run per tool. No handwriting, damaged real-world scan, mixed-language, complex-layout, batch, speed, security/privacy, server-deletion, accessibility, reliability, offline or desktop result is claimed. Searchable text is not proof of editable document content.

Sejda's separate online OCR tool was used, not its PDF editor. The earlier 26 September 2026 editor-upload attempt remains unsuccessful; this run does not change that editor test outcome or establish Desktop behavior.

Public test record · SHA-256 manifest · Full on-site context

Original files and validation artifacts

• inputs/w2d-ocr-synthetic-a-ground-truth.txt (806 bytes)
  SHA-256: 036339a1ca7a22257f66367ff899027eabfe4c57d1027988d537c2ad9abd9933
• inputs/w2d-ocr-synthetic-a-image-only.pdf (166345 bytes)
  SHA-256: edb369cbf95dbdd6eef03737ad8609db5eeca2e9ca855da88a7ea4a31aaa7977
• inputs/w2d-ocr-synthetic-a.png (163050 bytes)
  SHA-256: 2b291733a2e9cee956d4283bcb0a636dc07b177afbd69a7ba40061509ec4310c
• outputs/pdf24-ocr-output.pdf (162493 bytes)
  SHA-256: d3446491a60724a05435930a28d0b818af952c10795c4d9c70d9d9883c1ad13e
• outputs/pdf24-pdftotext-layout.txt (821 bytes)
  SHA-256: a08d7b605e9b275e5650a2af305cfc3c75ea53fcdc0aa012ef11b1e829a7ff4b
• outputs/pdf24-pymupdf-text.txt (730 bytes)
  SHA-256: 24a143d6388242d4ea6139d10909b15b682793575f47a920bfa5d072812c82db
• outputs/pdf24-pypdf-text.txt (721 bytes)
  SHA-256: a5790c3512748a495c6da3602656db725a2ad23f3a2ec929449260e96266bcaa
• outputs/sejda-ocr-output.pdf (170792 bytes)
  SHA-256: 2c518f96514ed84af9812450dd5d03bf0d407b9ebb816041748c72520cc70f1d
• outputs/sejda-original-download.zip (171907 bytes)
  SHA-256: 11448c0973aa287fbd100cd871e8ae355779d138afeef0eb2d0a5ef99b20113a
• outputs/sejda-pdftotext-layout.txt (961 bytes)
  SHA-256: e6d7116a9341f99ffa12198688ff3a98ff35e9104e72023c44331c51404e76d1
• outputs/sejda-pymupdf-text.txt (733 bytes)
  SHA-256: 978d0a366b3c7203a21dea685fa4709f51ebc47b865218e4221bb98c7fc31925
• outputs/sejda-pypdf-text.txt (722 bytes)
  SHA-256: 331fbfd11479d534d9f849a46e2831e9b9967d56beaf827d0338928f7add64a6
• outputs/sejda-vendor-text-output.txt (743 bytes)
  SHA-256: a8578f457dd84f5e7729a1fe311214ac679b3fc2bdf3069832f02556ccf87c58
• outputs/source_image_only_pdf-pymupdf-text.txt (0 bytes)
  SHA-256: e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
• outputs/source_image_only_pdf-pypdf-text.txt (0 bytes)
  SHA-256: e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
• pages/input-preview.png (94595 bytes)
  SHA-256: 38452757e7d932196af523a5c018578c26c7a926f25e806ddfe38b8ea06fb1ce
• pages/pdf24-output-preview.png (95122 bytes)
  SHA-256: 55de8ec7869650876f3fb799ebcc3dde43d2e744224776943b38f9984d7780dc
• pages/sejda-output-preview.png (94595 bytes)
  SHA-256: 38452757e7d932196af523a5c018578c26c7a926f25e806ddfe38b8ea06fb1ce
• evidence/input-validation.json (535 bytes)
  SHA-256: ad559bbb93390c6a930bf3af4651bcb60e4dc9c0c0995e17946b6d9b9a3a8ceb
• evidence/output-validation.json (4501 bytes)
  SHA-256: 23e2f1ee89b440aac460edee429a2f6fa66c1130cb21377bf0ea970c31216916
• evidence/pdf24-complete.png (63233 bytes)
  SHA-256: 79c3a3876bfdf67e551008021fe6d28f6a3225f805fe8bb6caa6754f978cb999
• evidence/sejda-settings.png (62950 bytes)
  SHA-256: 004d52a6dad3ed4b0a4cbb602138fc15eae14684f819d6f8178478778980db10
• evidence/sejda-complete.png (43499 bytes)
  SHA-256: b23d427e1fd2fb3c9abee1a03161e19df9c0e1d6292d8cb3aa3ade38c440bf77

Exact tools used: PDF24 Online OCR and Sejda Online OCR. Run dates do not refresh the catalog vendor-source review dates.