Get the text out of a PDF. Upload a PDF, extract all its text in seconds, then copy it or download it as a .txt file. Everything happens in your browser.
Your file is processed on your own device and never leaves it. Scanned PDFs (pictures of pages) have no text to extract.
1. Choose a PDF file. 2. Click Extract Text. 3. Read the text, copy it, or download it as a .txt file.
PDF files are easy to read but hard to reuse: you cannot easily copy a whole report into a document, search a long PDF, or translate it, because the text is locked inside the file. This free PDF to Text converter frees it: upload a PDF, and the tool reads the text from every page and shows it as plain text, which you can copy into Word, Google Docs, an email or anywhere else, or download as a .txt file. There is no sign-up, no watermark, and your file never leaves your browser — the whole job happens on your own device.
The tool uses pdf.js, the free PDF reader made by Mozilla, to read the text from each page in reading order and join the pages together. The result is clean, plain text: paragraphs are kept as paragraphs and line breaks are kept as line breaks, but fonts, colours, tables and images are not preserved, because plain text has no formatting. If the PDF is a scanned document — a photo of pages with no real text inside — there is nothing to extract, and the tool will tell you so clearly instead of giving you an empty file.
Suppose you have a 5-page PDF report and you need one paragraph from page 3 for your own document. Choose the PDF, click Extract Text, and the tool shows the text from all 5 pages in one box, in order. Find the paragraph you need, click Copy Text to copy everything, paste it into your document, and delete the parts you do not need. Or download the .txt file, open it in Notepad, and copy the paragraph from there. Either way, you get editable text in seconds, instead of retyping the whole paragraph by hand.
Now take a 50-page PDF manual and you need to find every mention of the word "warranty". Choose the PDF, click Extract Text, and download the .txt file. Open it in Notepad or Word and press Ctrl+F to search for "warranty" — every match is highlighted, and you can jump from one to the next in seconds. Doing the same search by scrolling through the PDF would take far longer, and the text file is also much smaller than the PDF, so it is easy to email or store. Try it with any long PDF on your computer and see how fast searching becomes.
A real PDF stores text as characters with positions on the page, not as a picture. The pdf.js library opens the PDF, goes through each page, and collects the text items in reading order, joining them with spaces and line breaks. The pages are then joined together with blank lines between them, so the result reads like a document. The text is plain: bold, italics, headings and tables are flattened into simple lines, because a .txt file cannot store formatting. If a page has no text items — for example, a scanned page — it contributes nothing, and if the whole PDF has no text, the tool tells you clearly that no text was found.
Download the .txt for long documents. Copying is fine for a few pages, but a .txt file is easier to search and store for long PDFs. Check the text order. Text is read in the order it sits on the page, which is usually correct, but a two-column layout can mix the columns together. Fix line breaks after pasting. Extracted text can have extra line breaks, so tidy them up in your document. Use it with the Word Converter. If you need an editable Word file instead of plain text, use our PDF to Word Converter, which does the same job with a .doc download. Remember scanned PDFs have no text. A photo of a page has no text to extract — you need an OCR tool for those.
Expecting formatting to survive. Plain text has no bold, headings or tables, so the result is simple text only — use the PDF to Word Converter if you need a formatted document. Trying to extract from a scanned PDF. Scanned pages are pictures with no text inside, so nothing is extracted; you need an OCR tool instead. Copying without checking. Two-column layouts and tables can come out in a mixed order, so read the text once before you use it. Forgetting to download. The text is not saved anywhere, so copy it or download the .txt file before you close the page. Using a password-protected PDF. Locked PDFs cannot be read until the password is removed.
Pro Tip: After you download the .txt file, open it in Word and use Find (Ctrl+F) to jump to any word in seconds — much faster than scrolling through the original PDF.
Note: This tool needs the internet the first time it loads, because it downloads the free pdf.js reader. After that, your file is processed on your device and never uploaded anywhere.
How do I extract text from a PDF? Choose a PDF, click Extract Text, and the tool shows all the text from every page. Copy it or download it as a .txt file.
Can I extract text from all pages at once? Yes. The tool reads every page of the PDF, in order, and joins the text together with blank lines between pages.
Are my PDFs uploaded anywhere? No. The extraction happens entirely in your browser using the pdf.js reader. Your files never leave your device.
Will the formatting be preserved? No. The result is plain text: bold, headings, tables and images are not kept. Use our PDF to Word Converter if you need an editable Word file instead.
Can I extract text from a scanned PDF? No. Scanned PDFs are pictures of pages with no text inside, so there is nothing to extract. You need an OCR (optical character recognition) tool for scanned documents.
What is the difference between this and the PDF to Word Converter? This tool gives you plain text to copy or download as .txt. The PDF to Word Converter gives you the same text as an editable .doc file for Word. Choose whichever suits your needs.
Can I search the extracted text? Yes. Download the .txt file, open it in Notepad or Word, and press Ctrl+F to search for any word in seconds.
Why is the text order mixed up? Text is read in the order it sits on the page. Two-column layouts and tables can mix the order, so read the result once and tidy it up before you use it.