PDF to Text
Extract all the text from a PDF into a plain .txt file. Runs in your browser.
Select or drop your file
PDF files — add several to process in one batch
Batch: up to 5 files at once · Premium for 100
Processed locally in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
When you only want the words — not the layout, images or formatting — PDF to Text extracts every character into a plain .txt file. It's the fastest way to get raw content out of a document for reuse, analysis or pasting somewhere that formatting would only get in the way.
How to pdf to text
- 1. Upload the PDF.
- 2. All selectable text is pulled out in reading order.
- 3. Download a plain .txt file with the document's text.
When to use PDF to Text
Feed text into another tool
Get clean, formatting-free text to paste into a spreadsheet, a script or an AI prompt.
Quick copy of the words
Grab the entire text of a document without selecting and copying page by page.
Search and reuse
Plain text is easy to search, diff and edit when the visual layout doesn't matter.
It needs real text to extract
This tool reads the text that's actually stored in the PDF. A document created digitally has that text; a scanned document is just images and contains none — so you'd get an empty or partial file. For scans, run OCR PDF first to generate a text layer, then extract. Complex layouts like multiple columns may come out in an order that needs light tidying.
Frequently asked questions
Will I get the formatting too?
No — this is plain text only. Fonts, colours, images and layout are intentionally stripped out.
Why is my output empty?
The PDF is probably a scan with no real text. Run OCR PDF first to recognise the characters, then extract the text.
What about multi-column pages?
Text is extracted in the document's reading order, which usually works well, though intricate layouts may need a quick reorder afterwards.
What format is the download?
A standard .txt file you can open in any text editor.