PDF to Text
Extract all the text from a PDF. Runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
About PDF to Text
PDF to Text pulls the words out of a PDF and hands them to you as plain text you can copy or download as a .txt file. No formatting, no images, no layout — just the content, ready to paste anywhere. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
Sometimes the formatting is the problem. Pasting from a PDF into an email or a CMS drags along fonts, colours, phantom line breaks and invisible spacing that fights whatever you paste it into. Stripping to plain text first gives you content that adopts its new home's styling cleanly, which is why writers, editors and anyone maintaining a website reach for this constantly.
The other driver is feeding text to something else. Word counts, translation tools, plagiarism checkers, search indexes and language models all want raw text rather than a page layout. Extracting is also the quickest way to answer a simple question about a long document — pull the text, search it in a plain editor, and you have your answer without loading a hundred megabytes of rendered pages.
How to extract text from a PDF
- Select the PDF you want to extract text from.
- Wait a moment while the text layer is read — this is fast because no rendering is involved.
- Review the extracted text on screen.
- Copy it to your clipboard, or download it as a .txt file.
- Paste it wherever you need it, free of the original formatting.
Tips & common problems
Nothing extracted means it is a scan
If the result is empty, the PDF holds pictures of pages rather than text. Run it through OCR PDF to create a text layer, then come back.
Column order can interleave
Two-column layouts such as academic papers sometimes extract with lines alternating between columns, because extraction follows the order text was drawn. Expect to tidy those documents.
Headers and footers repeat
Running heads and page numbers appear on every page and land in the middle of your text. A quick find-and-replace clears them out.
Need the formatting kept? Use PDF to Word
This tool deliberately discards layout. If you want headings, tables and images preserved, convert to Word instead.
Frequently asked questions
How do I extract text from a PDF for free?
Open it here and copy the text or download it as a .txt file. No signup, and nothing is uploaded.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
No. Scanned pages contain images with no selectable text. Run them through OCR PDF first, which adds a real text layer, then extract from that file.
Why is the text out of order?
Extraction follows the order in which text was placed in the file, which for multi-column layouts is not always the reading order. Simple single-column documents extract in perfect sequence.
Will I lose my formatting?
Yes, and that is intentional. Bold, headings, tables and images are all discarded so you get clean, portable text. Use PDF to Word if you need the formatting.
Is there a page limit?
No. Extraction is lightweight, so even very long documents process almost instantly.
Are my files uploaded?
No. Extraction happens entirely in your browser and the document never leaves your device.