PDF to Text
The words out of a PDF, as plain text.
FREE - NOTHING UPLOADS - RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE
Your document never leaves your device
- 0 KBadded to the page
- Pagesor the whole file
- Copyor download .txt
- Sayswhen it is a scan
What you can count on
- 0bytes uploaded
- The PDF is read here in the tab
- No copy is kept anywhere
- 1click to the text
- Paragraph breaks come across
- Pick a page range or take the lot
- 100%in your browser
- No server reads your document
- Close the tab and it is gone
PDF to Text at a glance
- Input formats
- One PDF
- Output formats
- Plain text, clipboard or .txt
- Maximum file size
- Device memory
- Batch
- One PDF at a time
- Quality control
- Lines and paragraphs rebuilt
- Scanned files
- Named, not silently empty
- Open-ended ranges
- 12- and -5 both work
- Price
- Free
- Account required
- No
How to use PDF to Text
- 1
Add the PDF
Drop the file on the page or choose it. It is read in this tab; nothing is sent anywhere.
- 2
Choose the pages
Leave the page box empty for the whole file, or name them, like 1-3, 7. Untick paragraph breaks for one long run of lines.
- 3
Take out the text
The text appears below. Copy it to the clipboard, or download it as a .txt file.
Frequently asked questions
My PDF came back with a message and no text. Why?
It is a scan — pictures of pages rather than characters. There is nothing inside the file to take out. Reading letters off a picture needs character recognition, which this tool does not do.
Are the paragraphs kept?
Yes, by default. Lines are rebuilt from where the words sit on the page, and a gap wider than about one and a half lines is treated as the end of a paragraph. You can turn that off.
Can I take only some of the pages?
Yes. Write them the way you would in a print dialog — 1-3, 7, 12- — and only those pages are read.
Does the file get uploaded?
No. The PDF is opened and read inside this tab. Nothing about it, including the text, is sent anywhere.
What about tables and columns?
Text in columns comes out column by column, as the page stores it, which may not be the reading order you expect. A table loses its grid and arrives as lines of text.
What happens if I switch to another tab while it works?
The work pauses and picks up where it left off when you come back. Browsers throttle hidden tabs, so a job left running in the background would slow to a crawl or stall outright.
When a PDF Has No Text
Drop a PDF in and the words come back as plain text, with the paragraph breaks kept and the pages you asked for. A PDF that is only scanned pictures has no text inside it to take.
- A PDF made by a scanner holds a picture of each page. It looks like text on screen, but there are no characters in the file.
- This tool says so before you go looking for the missing words, and names the individual pages that are pictures in a file that mixes both.
Full specification
| Input formats | One PDF. An encrypted file has to be unlocked first. |
|---|---|
| Output formats | Plain text on the page, copied to the clipboard, or downloaded as a .txt file. |
| Maximum file size | Limited only by your device memory |
| Batch | No, one PDF at a time. Page ranges inside that file are fine. |
| Quality control | Lines are rebuilt from where the words sit, and a wide gap between lines is read as a paragraph break. |
| Scanned files | A page that is a picture holds no characters. Those pages are named, and a file that is all pictures says so instead of returning nothing. |
| Open-ended ranges | 12- means page 12 to the end, -5 means the start to page 5. Mix them with single numbers: 1, 4-6, 12-. |
| Price | Free |
| Account required | No |
Keep going with the same files
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