Extract text from PDF
Copy all the text out of a PDF or save it as a .txt file. Runs on your device, nothing is uploaded.
How to use Extract text from PDF
- 01Drop a PDF onto the upload area. The text appears as soon as it's read.
- 02Turn Page markers on or off, and tick Join lines into paragraphs if you plan to paste the text into a document.
- 03Click Copy, or Download .txt to save it as a plain text file.
Copying from a PDF viewer often goes wrong: one line at a time, broken words, text from two columns mixed together. This tool reads the text layer of every page at once and gives you all of it in a box you can copy from or save.
The PDF is read in your browser with pdf.js, the same engine Firefox uses to display PDFs. Nothing is uploaded, so notes, contracts and statements stay on your device.
Line breaks are kept as they are in the PDF by default. Join lines into paragraphs turns the short lines of a printed page back into flowing paragraphs and rejoins words split with a hyphen at the end of a line, which is what you want before pasting into Word or Google Docs.
Questions
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The text is read inside your browser tab and nothing is sent to a server.
Why is no text found in my PDF?
Scanned documents and photos saved as PDF are pictures of text, with no text layer to copy. Those need OCR (text recognition), which is coming as a separate tool.
Does it keep tables and formatting?
It extracts plain text only. Table cells come out as text in reading order; fonts, colours and layout aren't kept.
Can I extract text from a password-protected PDF?
Not yet. Remove the password first; the tool tells you if a file is protected.