How to use PDF to Text
- 1. Add a PDFClick Choose PDF files or drop one or more PDFs onto the box.
- 2. Choose a layout and click ConvertWith page breaks keeps a break between pages; Plain text gives one continuous block. Click Convert to extract.
- 3. Download the .txt fileEach PDF becomes a .txt file. Use Download, or Download all (.zip) for several PDFs.
PDF text vs a TXT file
Most PDFs made from a word processor, browser or design app contain a hidden text layer: the actual characters, positioned on the page. This tool reads that layer and writes the characters into a plain .txt file.
A TXT file has no fonts, colors, images or layout, just characters. That's exactly what you want for pasting into an email, a spreadsheet, a translator, a code editor or a notes app.
| TXT | ||
|---|---|---|
| Holds | Text, fonts, images, exact layout | Characters and line breaks only |
| Editable | Hard without special software | In any text editor |
| Formatting | Kept exactly | None |
| Images | Yes | No |
| Opens in | PDF readers and browsers | Notepad, TextEdit and every editor |
Check first: does your PDF have a text layer?
Open the PDF in any reader and try to select a sentence with your mouse. If the words highlight, there's a text layer and extraction will work. If the whole page highlights like a picture, or nothing highlights, it's a scan: the page is an image of text, and there are no characters to extract.
Scanned PDFs need OCR (optical character recognition) to turn pictures of letters into text. OCR isn't offered here yet. Until it is, a practical workaround is to turn the scanned pages into images and use Live Text on an iPhone or Mac, or Google Lens on Android, to copy the words.
Choosing a layout
- With page breaks (the default) keeps a clear break between pages, handy when you need to know which page a passage came from.
- Plain text gives one continuous stream of text with no page markers, the cleanest option for pasting elsewhere.
What doesn't survive
PDFs store where each piece of text sits on the page, not how a reader should flow through it. Most documents extract cleanly, but some layouts need tidying afterwards:
- Tables become lines of text separated by spaces, not cells.
- Multi-column pages, sidebars and captions may come out in an unexpected order.
- Headers, footers and page numbers appear in the text.
- Bold, italics, links and images are dropped.
- A few PDFs embed fonts without a character map, which makes some text come out as gibberish. That's a property of the file; re-saving it from the original app usually fixes it.
Copying text without a converter
For a paragraph or two, selecting and copying in your PDF reader is quickest. Extracting the whole file is better when the document is long, when copying breaks every line in the wrong place, or when you have several PDFs to process at once.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get text from a PDF without the formatting?
Choose Plain text as the layout and click Convert. The .txt file contains only the words and line breaks, with no fonts, colors or images.
Can I extract text from a scanned PDF?
Not yet. Scanned pages are pictures with no text layer, so they need OCR, which this tool doesn't offer. You'll get an empty or near-empty file. Converting pages to images and using Live Text or Google Lens is a workaround.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The text is extracted on your device, in your browser, and your PDF is never uploaded. The page loads its own code, ads and cookieless analytics like any website, but not your document. Here's how to confirm it.
Is PDF to TXT the same as PDF to text?
Yes. The result is a plain text file with the .txt extension, which opens in Notepad, TextEdit and every other editor.
Why is the text in the wrong order?
PDFs position text on a page rather than storing a reading order. Multi-column layouts and tables can come out jumbled. You may need to rearrange those parts by hand.
Can I extract text from several PDFs at once?
Yes. Add them all and click Convert once. Each PDF gives its own .txt file, and Download all (.zip) saves them together.