PDF to Text
Extract selectable text from a digital PDF — copy or download as .txt. Browser-only: your file never leaves your device.
Drop files here, browse
Max file size: 100 MB
Digital PDFs Only
Text extraction only works on PDFs with selectable/copyable text. Scanned or image-only PDFs have no embedded text layer and will return empty — see the FAQ.
Fully Private
All processing runs in your browser using PDF.js. Your file is never sent to any server.
Page-by-Page Output
Extracted text is split by page with clear page separators so you can easily find content from specific pages.
How to extract text from a PDF
- Drop your PDF onto the upload area or click to browse.
- Click Extract Text.
- Copy the extracted text or download it as a
.txtfile.
Scanned PDFs: If your PDF was created by scanning paper pages, the pages are stored as images and contain no embedded text. This tool will show "No selectable text found." To extract text from scanned PDFs you need OCR software — try Google Drive (upload the PDF, open with Google Docs), Adobe Acrobat Pro, or a dedicated OCR app.
Privacy — processed in your browser
Text extraction runs entirely in your browser using PDF.js — the same open-source library used by Firefox. Your PDF is never uploaded to any server. All processing happens locally on your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does extraction return empty for my PDF?
Your PDF most likely contains only scanned images rather than digital text. When you photocopy a document or scan it to PDF, no text layer is created — the pages are stored as raster images. You need OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to extract text from those PDFs.
How can I tell if my PDF has selectable text?
Open the PDF and try to click and drag to select text. If you can highlight individual words the PDF has a text layer and extraction will work. If clicking does nothing or only selects the whole page as an image, it is a scanned PDF.
Why does the extracted text look garbled or merged?
PDF text extraction is complex — PDFs store characters with absolute coordinates rather than in reading order. Multi-column layouts, tables, headers, and footnotes often extract in unexpected order. The text is correct, but spatial layout is lost. For precise layout-aware extraction, specialist PDF editing software is better suited.
Can I extract text from a password-protected PDF?
No — encrypted PDFs prevent text access. Use the Unlock PDF tool first to remove the password restriction, then try extraction again.
What is the maximum PDF size?
There is no hard limit set by this tool — the limit is your device's available memory. Very large PDFs (hundreds of pages, hundreds of MB) may be slow or fail on low-memory devices. For large documents, extract a range of pages using the Split PDF tool first.