Extract text from a PDF
Pull the text out of a PDF so you can copy it or save it as a plain text file.
- Free
- Runs on your device
- No account
- No limits
How to extract text from a pdf
- Drop a PDF in the box above.
- The text of every page appears below, page by page.
- Copy it, or download it as a .txt file.
What this can and cannot read
This reads the real text stored in the PDF, which is why it is exact and instant. It works for documents made by a computer, like invoices, reports and contracts.
A scanned page is a picture of text, not text, so nothing comes out. Reading those needs character recognition, which this tool doesn't do.
Like everything on this site, this tool runs in your browser. Your image is never uploaded.
Common questions
Is the pdf to text tool free?
Yes, properly free. No paid tier, no trial, no watermark on the result and nothing to sign up for. Put as many files through it as you like, as often as you like.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. The pdf to text tool runs inside your browser, on your own machine, so your files never go anywhere. Big ones are fine too, up to whatever your browser can hold.
Why is no text found in my PDF?
Because it is almost certainly a scan. A scanned page is a photograph of paper, so the file contains an image with no text in it at all, however clearly you can read it on screen. Pulling words out of that needs character recognition, which is a different job from this one. A PDF made from a document rather than a scanner will give up its text immediately.
Does the layout survive?
Not really. You get the words in reading order, page by page, which is what you want for copying a quote, searching for a phrase or feeding the content somewhere else. Columns, tables and headers don't come through as they looked, because that arrangement lives in the PDF page rather than in the text.
What people usually do next
- Convert a PDF to images PDF pages out as JPG, PNG or WebP, single or zipped.
- Extract pages from a PDF Keep only the pages you pick.