PDF to Text Converter
Extract all the selectable text from a PDF file.
Drop your PDF here
or choose a PDF from your device
What is a PDF to Text converter?
A PDF to Text converter extracts selectable text from a PDF and turns it into plain text that you can copy, edit, or save for later use. It is useful when you need the written content of a PDF without working with the original document layout.
This tool works with text that already exists inside the PDF. It does not use OCR to recognize words from scanned pages or other image-only content.
How to convert PDF to text online
- 1
Upload your PDF
Select the PDF you want to convert. The file is processed directly in your browser.
- 2
Extract the text
The tool reads the selectable text from the PDF and converts it into plain text.
- 3
Review the extracted text
Check the extracted content and make sure the text appears as expected.
- 4
Copy or download the text
Copy the extracted text or download it as a text file for use elsewhere.
Why extract text from a PDF?
Extracting text can make the written content of a PDF easier to reuse. Instead of manually copying paragraphs from a document, you can extract the available text and work with it in another application.
- • Copy text from a PDF into another document.
- • Reuse written content from existing PDF files.
- • Search or edit extracted text in a text editor.
- • Save PDF text as a simple TXT file.
- • Work with document text without the original PDF layout.
Extract selectable text from PDF files
PDFs can contain a real text layer or pages made entirely from images. When a PDF contains selectable text, the text can generally be extracted without needing to recognize the characters visually.
The extracted result is plain text rather than a visual copy of the original page. As a result, complex layouts such as columns, tables, custom spacing, and positioned text may not appear in exactly the same arrangement as the PDF.
PDF text extraction vs. OCR
Text extraction and OCR solve different problems. Text extraction reads characters that are already stored as text inside a PDF. OCR, on the other hand, analyzes images and attempts to recognize the words shown in those images.
If your PDF is a scan where you cannot select the text with your mouse, it may require an OCR-based tool instead of a standard PDF text extractor.
Extract PDF text without changing the original
Extracting text creates a separate text result and does not modify the source PDF. You can keep the original document unchanged while using the extracted text for editing, copying, searching, or other text-based tasks.
Extract PDF text privately in your browser
This PDF to Text converter processes your document directly in your browser. Your PDF does not need to be uploaded to a remote server for text extraction.
Frequently asked questions
- Yes, completely free with no signup or usage limit.
- No. Text extraction happens directly in your browser, so your PDF does not need to be uploaded to our servers.
- No. Scanned PDFs usually contain page images rather than a selectable text layer. This tool does not perform OCR, so it cannot extract text from image-only scanned pages.
- The tool extracts selectable text that is already present in the PDF document. It does not recognize text from images or scanned pages.
- The extracted result is plain text, so the original PDF layout, fonts, colors, columns, and other visual formatting may not be preserved.
- Yes. Once the text has been extracted, you can copy it into a text editor, document editor, or another application and make changes.
- No. The original PDF is not modified. The tool creates extracted text separately from the source document.
- Yes. The tool can extract selectable text from the pages of a multi-page PDF.
- No. It extracts text that already exists in the PDF's text layer. OCR is not used to recognize text from scanned images.
- Some PDFs use scanned images, unusual text encoding, embedded fonts, or other structures that can affect text extraction. Image-only content cannot be extracted without OCR.