Extract text from a PDF
Pull all the text out of a PDF as clean plain text, with paragraphs and reading order preserved. Preview the result, copy it to the clipboard or download a .txt file — without the document leaving your device.
100% private: files are processed in your browser and never uploaded to any server.
How it works
- Drop a PDF into the box above — extraction starts automatically.
- Check the text in the preview window.
- Copy everything to the clipboard, or download it as a .txt file.
Getting the words out of a PDF
Sometimes you just need the raw text — to quote a passage, feed a document into another program, run a word count, or store a plain-text copy. Extracting text pulls the words out of a PDF as a clean .txt file you can paste anywhere, no formatting or PDF reader required.
Reading order and paragraphs, preserved
Naive extraction often produces jumbled text, because a PDF stores characters by position, not by reading order. This tool reassembles lines into paragraphs using the page layout and rejoins words that were hyphenated across line breaks, so the output reads the way the document does rather than as a scramble of fragments.
When extraction comes back empty
If the result is blank or nearly so, your PDF is almost certainly a scan — the pages are images with no underlying text to extract. The fix is OCR: run the file through the OCR PDF tool to recognise the text first, then extract it. And if you want headings and lists preserved rather than flat text, use the PDF to Markdown tool instead; it uses the same engine with structure added.
What extracted text is good for
Plain text is the most portable form a document can take, so pulling it out of a PDF unlocks a lot. You can quote a passage without retyping it, run a word count, or check the document with a spell-checker. You can feed the text into another program — a translator, a database, an analysis script — that expects plain input rather than a PDF. You can paste it into a note or an email in seconds. And a plain-text copy is a small, future-proof archive of a document's words, readable on any device for decades to come.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my extracted text empty?
Your PDF is probably a scan: the pages are images, not text. Use the OCR PDF tool to recognize the text first, then extract it.
Does it preserve paragraphs and reading order?
Yes. Lines are reassembled into paragraphs using the document layout, and hyphenated line breaks are joined back into whole words.
Do you keep a copy of my document or its text?
No. Everything runs in your browser; neither the PDF nor the extracted text is ever sent anywhere.
I need headings and lists too — not just plain text.
Use the PDF to Markdown tool instead: same engine, but it also reconstructs headings, lists and bold text as Markdown markup.