PDF to Text

Extract Text from PDF Free Online

Extracting text from a PDF lets you copy, search, edit, and reuse the content. Instead of manually copying text page by page, this tool reads your entire PDF and extracts all the text at once. The result is a clean text file you can download or copy to your clipboard.

This tool works with PDFs that contain a text layer. Most PDFs created by word processors, design tools, or exported from websites have a text layer. Scanned PDFs are images and require OCR (optical character recognition) instead.

Processing happens entirely in your browser using PDF.js. No data is sent to any server. Your document content stays private.

What Is a PDF Text Layer?

A PDF file can contain two types of content: actual text stored as characters, and images that look like text. When a PDF is created by exporting from a word processor or design tool, the text is stored as real characters. This means the text is selectable, searchable, and extractable.

When a PDF is created by scanning a paper document, the pages are stored as images. The text is part of the picture, not real text data. To extract text from a scanned PDF, you need an OCR tool that can read the image and recognize the letters.

This PDF to Text tool works with text-layer PDFs. For scanned documents, use our JPG to Text OCR tool by first converting the PDF pages to images using our PDF to JPG tool.

How to Extract Text from a PDF

Step 1 – Upload your PDF. Click or drag your PDF file onto the tool.

Step 2 – Wait for extraction. The tool reads each page and extracts all text in reading order.

Step 3 – Review the text. The extracted text appears in a text area. You can review and edit it.

Step 4 – Copy or download. Click Copy to copy the text to your clipboard, or click Download to save it as a .txt file.

Common Uses for PDF Text Extraction

Content reuse. Writers and editors extract text from PDFs to edit, rephrase, or reformat content in a word processor.

Data processing. Developers and analysts extract text from reports and research papers to feed into data processing scripts.

Translation. Translating a PDF is easier when you first extract the text, translate it in a separate tool, then format the result.

Accessibility. Screen readers work better with plain text than with PDFs. Extracting text from a PDF creates a version that assistive technologies can process more easily.

Keyword research and indexing. SEO professionals extract text from PDFs to analyze keyword density or add content to websites in a searchable format.

Benefits

Instant extraction. Get all text from a PDF in seconds without manually copying page by page.

Editable output. Plain text is compatible with every text editor, word processor, and content management system.

Private. No file leaves your browser. Your document content is never seen by anyone else.

Free. No account, no limits, no payment.

Limitations

Scanned PDFs. Image-based PDFs do not have extractable text. Use OCR for those documents.

Formatting is lost. The extracted text is plain. Tables, columns, and styling from the original PDF are not preserved in the text output.

Reading order. Complex multi-column layouts may extract text in a slightly different order than the visual reading flow.

Related Tools

• JPG to Text (OCR) – Extract text from scanned images using OCR.
• PDF to HTML – Convert PDF content to a structured HTML file.
• PDF to JPG – Convert PDF pages to images.
• TXT to PDF – Convert text back into a PDF document.

Frequently Asked Questions