PDF to Text
Pull the words out of a PDF as a plain .txt file. This reads the text the document already contains — it isn't OCR, so a scanned page has nothing to read.
Private by design: This tool runs entirely in your browser using its built-in image engine. Your files are not uploaded to a server, and nothing you convert is stored or logged. See how in-browser processing works.
How to extract text from a PDF
Drop a PDF onto the upload area, or click it to browse.
Click Extract text — pages are read in order, with page markers for multi-page files.
Download the .txt file.
This reads text, it doesn't recognise it
PDFs made from Word, exported by a reporting tool, or generated by a website store their words as text. This tool reads that text directly, which is fast and exact — no transcription errors, because nothing is being guessed.
A scanned PDF is different: it's a photograph of a page, and the words are just shapes in an image. There's no text to read, so extraction returns nothing. Getting words out of a scan needs OCR — optical character recognition — which this tool deliberately doesn't do. Rather than hand you an empty file, it tells you the page has no text layer.
How to tell which kind you have
Open the PDF and try to select a sentence with your cursor. If the text highlights, it's a real text layer and this tool will read it. If your cursor just draws a box over the page, it's a scan.
What the output looks like
You get a plain .txt file with the text in reading order, and a page marker between pages in multi-page documents. Formatting doesn't survive: bold, headings, colours, font sizes, and column layouts are all presentation, and plain text has none of it. Tables in particular tend to come out as loose rows rather than aligned columns.
If a document is partly scanned and partly digital, the pages with a text layer are extracted and you're told how many pages had none.
Safe for confidential documents
Contracts, statements, and case files are exactly the sort of thing people paste into online extractors without thinking. This one reads the PDF in your browser — the file is never uploaded, so its contents don't reach a server at all.
Good to know
Extraction only, not OCR — scanned PDFs have no text layer to read.
Formatting, tables, and layout are not preserved; you get plain text.
Multi-page PDFs get a page marker between pages.
Password-protected PDFs can't be opened at all.
Frequently asked questions
Why did it say my PDF has no text?
It's almost certainly a scan — a photograph of a page rather than real text. Try selecting a sentence in the PDF: if you can't highlight it, there's no text layer to extract.
Does this do OCR?
No. It reads text the PDF already stores, which is exact and fast. Reading words out of a scanned image needs OCR, which is a different job and isn't offered here.
Will my formatting be preserved?
No. The output is plain text, so bold, headings, colours, and column layouts are lost. Tables usually come out as loose rows rather than aligned columns.
Can I extract text from just one page?
Extract the pages you want with Split PDF first, then run the smaller file through this tool.
Does it work on password-protected PDFs?
No. An encrypted PDF can't be read without its password, so remove the protection in the app that created it first.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The PDF is read in your browser and never sent to a server, which matters for contracts and other confidential files.