Extract text from a PDF
Copy the text out of a PDF, or save it as a TXT file.
PDFTXT
or drop them here
Processed on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
Convert PDF to text and pull every word out of a document in one step. Copy the result straight to your clipboard or save it as a .txt file. It’s handy for quoting from a report, feeding text into another app, searching a long document or getting around a PDF that won’t let you select text nicely.
Line breaks and page order are kept, and you can mark where each page begins. Scanned pages are read with OCR. All of it happens inside your browser, so the PDF is never uploaded.
It’s free, with no account and no limits on how many PDFs you process. Researchers, students and developers use it to grab quotes, build reading notes or feed document text into scripts, spreadsheets and AI tools without copying page by page.
How to use PDF to Text
Add your PDFs
Drop PDFs into the drop area or pick them from your device. Several files can be processed together.
Decide on page markers
Tick Mark where each page starts if you want a label between pages in the output. For a scanned PDF, pick the language it’s written in.
Click Extract text
Press Extract text. The text from every page appears in reading order.
Copy or download
Copy the text to your clipboard, or download it as a .txt file.
How to copy text from a PDF that won’t select properly
Selecting text in a PDF viewer often grabs the wrong lines, skips columns or adds odd breaks. Extracting the whole document at once avoids the fiddly selection, and you can trim the result in any text editor.
Page markers help when you need to cite a page number or find where a passage came from. Turn them on before extracting.
Scanned PDFs are read with OCR
Normally the tool copies the text layer stored inside the PDF, which is exact. Scanned documents and photos saved as PDF have no text layer, only pictures of the pages, so those pages are read with OCR (optical character recognition) instead. This also runs on your device.
Pick the document’s language under Language of scanned pages, since the reader is trained per language. Clean scans of printed text come out well. Faint copies, handwriting and skewed phone photos lead to misread characters, so check anything you plan to quote.
Some PDFs mix both: typed pages plus a few scanned attachments. Typed pages are copied exactly and only the scanned ones go through OCR. It takes a few seconds per scanned page.
Plain text vs. converting to Word
Plain text drops all formatting, which is exactly what you want for pasting into code, spreadsheets, AI tools or a search index. If you want to keep headings and paragraph structure for editing, PDF to Word is the better choice.
Plain .txt files are also tiny and open on any device, from an old laptop to a phone, without special software.
Questions people ask
Is PDF to text free?
Yes. Extract text from as many PDFs as you like at no cost and without signing up.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The text is extracted in your browser and the file stays on your device.
Can I extract text from a scanned PDF?
Yes. Pages without a text layer are read with OCR in the language you choose. Expect a few mistakes on poor scans.
Does it keep line breaks?
Yes. Line breaks and page order are kept, and you can add markers showing where each page starts.
Can I extract text from several PDFs at once?
Yes. Add multiple files and each one’s text is extracted separately.
How do I save the text as a .txt file?
After clicking Extract text, use the download option to save the result as a plain .txt file.
Why does the extracted text have odd line breaks?
Line breaks follow the lines in the PDF, so a paragraph may be split where the original line ended. Join them in a text editor if you need flowing paragraphs.