100% on-device · nothing uploaded
PDF to text
Get the text out of a PDF. This reads the PDF's real text layer — so it is instant and exact, not a guess — and it all happens in this tab, so the document never leaves your device. Copy the result or save it as a plain-text file.
How to use it
- Choose a PDF — it stays on your device.
- Press Extract text. The text layer of every page is read in a moment.
- Copy the text, or download it as a .txt file.
A scanned PDF has no text to extract
This reads the text layer the PDF already contains - the actual character codes and their positions, recovered rather than recognised. A file from a word processor, a browser’s print-to-PDF or an accounting system carries that layer. One from a scanner or a phone camera app usually does not: it is a container of page images, with nothing inside to read out.
The test works in any reader. Drag the cursor across a line: if words highlight there is a text layer, and extraction is instant and exact; if a rectangle draws over the page instead, there is not. Those files need optical character recognition, a different operation entirely - the Image to Text tool recognises characters inside a picture. One case sits between: scanners producing a "searchable PDF" hide a recognised layer behind the page image, and that layer does extract, complete with whatever mistakes the recognition made.
Why the words are all there but the order is not
A PDF does not store paragraphs. It stores instructions placing runs of glyphs at coordinates, in whatever sequence the generating program emitted them. The gap between two words is frequently not a space character but a positioning offset, so word boundaries are inferred from the geometry, and a line break is simply the next run starting lower down.
That is why a two-column article can come back with its columns interleaved, a table as a stream of cell values with no rows, and a running header halfway through a paragraph. It is also why hyphens survive at the ends of words broken across lines, and why a ligature can extract as one unexpected character. Every mark is recovered; what counted as a paragraph is a judgement the file never recorded.
Questions
Is my PDF uploaded to extract the text?
No. The text is read by your browser on your own device, so the PDF never leaves this tab — unlike most free "PDF to text" sites, which upload your file to a server.
It says there is no text — why?
The PDF is probably a scan or made of page images, which have no selectable text layer to read. Turn each page into an image and run it through the Image to Text (OCR) tool, which recognises text inside pictures.
Is this OCR?
No — and that is why it is instant and exact. It reads the genuine text the PDF already stores, character for character. OCR is only needed when the "text" is really a picture of text, as in a scan.
Why is the layout not perfect?
A PDF stores text as positioned fragments, not as flowing paragraphs, so columns, tables and complex layouts can come out in an unexpected order. The words are all there; the visual arrangement may need tidying.
Does it keep my formatting?
It extracts plain text — the words and line breaks, not fonts, colours or styling. That is what a .txt file is, and what most people pasting from a PDF actually want.
Updated 2026-07-20. Runs fully in your browser — nothing is uploaded.