I've tested a handful of free PDF editors this year, mostly because I needed something that could handle scanned documents without asking for a credit card. Most free tools either watermark everything or cap you at three pages. That's when I landed on docly, which bills itself as a free AI PDF editor with OCR. I ran it through a few real tasks over a couple of days.
What docly does and doesn't do with OCR
The big draw is the OCR. I threw a scanned invoice at it—one of those blurry, slightly rotated scans from a brother printer. Docly pulled the text out in about 12 seconds. That's slower than some desktop tools, but for an online editor it felt reasonable. It kept the table structure mostly intact, though a couple of numbers got mangled (201 became 201). That's typical for OCR on a bad scan, but worth noting if you need perfect accuracy on invoices.
The AI summary feature is interesting. I tested it on a 30-page industry report. It condensed it to about four bullet points and a short paragraph. The points were accurate, but they missed some nuance—specifically the report's main caveat about seasonal data. So it's useful for a quick skim, not a replacement for reading.
Specific observations from real use
I tried text extraction on a PDF contract next. Docly lets you upload, then click "Extract Text" and it gives you a clean copy. That worked well for the first five pages. On page six, though, it hit a small glitch: a footnote was pulled into the main text block. I had to manually fix that. Not a dealbreaker, but it means you can't blindly copy-paste without checking.
Editing the PDF directly is where docly feels most like a beta product. You can highlight, add notes, and fill in form fields. But I tried deleting a paragraph and the tool reflowed the next page oddly, leaving extra white space. I had to undo and try a different approach. It's usable, but not polished. For a free AI PDF editor with OCR, though, the editing is passable for light markups.
Tradeoffs you should know
The biggest tradeoff is file size limits. Docly caps free uploads at 30 MB. That's fine for most documents, but I have some large technical manuals over 50 MB. You'd need to split them first. Also, the free tier limits you to a certain number of AI actions per day—I hit the limit after about 10 extractions. That's okay for casual use, but if you're processing dozens of files daily, you'd need the paid version.
Another tradeoff: the OCR only works on uploaded files, not on a scanned image you paste. I tried copying a screenshot of text from my clipboard and docly didn't accept it as input. You have to save it as a file first. Small friction, but it broke my flow.
Who should try docly?
If you need quick text extraction from scans without installing software, and you're okay with occasional formatting issues, docly is one of the best free AI PDF editors available right now. It's especially handy for students who need to pull quotes from scanned book chapters, or freelancers who receive signed contracts as images. For heavy editing or batch processing, you'll want to look elsewhere or pay for the upgrade.
I'm not sure how long docly will stay free at this quality level. If you're looking for a free AI PDF editor 2026 might look different, but for now it competes well with other offerings. I'd say try it on a single document first—see if the OCR handles your specific scans before relying on it.
One more cautious note: the docly ai pdf editor has a clean interface, but I noticed that the undo function sometimes didn't work after an AI action. Lost about two minutes of edits that way. So save frequently if you're making changes.
Overall, it's a practical tool with real utility, but not without rough edges. For a free tool, that's a fair trade.
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