PDF to Text — Extract Text from PDF Files Free Online
Extract text from PDF files
Extract all text content from any PDF file. Copy to clipboard or download as a .txt file. Works with selectable text PDFs.
About PDF to Text
PDF to text extraction pulls the embedded textual content from a PDF document and makes it available as plain, searchable, copyable text. This is useful for repurposing document content, feeding text into AI tools, building searchable indexes, or simply copying text from a PDF that restricts selection.
PDFs store text in two fundamentally different ways: as real, selectable text glyphs (in PDFs created from word processors or design tools) and as raster images of text (in scanned documents). This tool extracts the former. For scanned PDFs, dedicated OCR software is required.
Common use cases include extracting contract or legal document text for review in a word processor, feeding research paper content into summarisation or translation tools, pulling data tables from PDF reports into a spreadsheet, copying text from a PDF that has copy-paste disabled at the viewer level, and indexing document content for search.
The extraction engine is PDF.js — the same library used by Firefox and Chrome to render PDFs in the browser. It processes the document entirely on your device, so no content is transmitted externally. After extraction, you can copy the text to the clipboard or download it as a plain .txt file for further use.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this tool work on scanned PDFs?
No. This tool extracts embedded text from PDFs that contain real selectable text. Scanned PDFs are images of text and require OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to extract their content.
Will the extracted text preserve formatting and layout?
Extracted text is plain text without rich formatting. Tables, columns, and complex layouts may not translate perfectly to linear text.
Can I search the extracted text?
Yes. After extraction, the text appears in a textarea where you can use your browser's built-in find function (Ctrl+F / Cmd+F), or copy and paste it into any text editor or search tool.
Is there a page limit for extraction?
There is no hard page limit. The tool processes all pages of the uploaded PDF sequentially. Very long documents may take a few extra seconds.