Free PDF to Text Converter
This free tool extracts the text from a PDF and shows it in a box you can copy, with a download link for a TXT file. Choose plain reading order or keep the page layout, and pick a page range. It reads the text already inside the file, so scanned images are not turned into text. Your PDF is deleted right after.
PDF to Text
PDF Tools
About this tool
Copying text out of a PDF by hand often goes wrong: columns mix, line breaks land in the middle of sentences and page numbers sneak in. Extracting it with a proper text engine gives you a clean starting point for editing, translating, quoting or loading into a spreadsheet or another program.
The tool uses pdftotext from the poppler library. In the default mode it follows the reading order and joins lines of a paragraph. The layout mode keeps the physical position of text on the page, which helps with tables, invoices and forms. Pages are separated by a line so you can see where each one begins. You can limit the run to a page range.
The tool reads the text layer of the PDF. A file made from a scanner or a phone camera holds pictures of pages, not text, so the result will be empty; that needs optical character recognition, which this tool does not do. Output is shown in full up to 100,000 characters, and the download holds everything. Password protected files need the Unlock PDF tool first.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the extracted text empty?
The PDF is probably a scan or a photo of paper. Those files contain pictures of text rather than real text, so there is nothing to extract. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is needed for that, and this tool does not include it.
What does keep layout do?
It places text where it sits on the page, using spaces to line up columns. This helps with tables, invoices and forms. Without it, the tool follows reading order and joins the lines of each paragraph, which is better for articles.
Can I extract only some pages?
Yes. Type a range such as 2-5 in the page box. Leave it empty to extract the whole document. Pages in the result are separated by a divider line.
Are fonts and images kept?
No. You get plain text only. Use the PDF to Image tool for page pictures or the Extract PDF Images tool for the pictures stored in the file.
Is my file stored?
No. Your file is written to a private temporary folder, processed for the length of the request and deleted straight after, whether the job worked or not. We do not keep copies, build a library of uploads or read the content of your documents.