Convert PDF to Text Online
Pull the text out of a PDF and get plain, editable text you can copy, quote, or reuse, all in your browser. Your PDF never leaves your device, and the tool keeps working offline.
Drag and drop or Tap to select a PDFclick to select a PDF
Files are processed on your device only.
How it works
- Drop or select your .pdf file. It is read on your device only.
- The text is extracted and shown in a preview you can copy.
- Click Download to save it as a .txt file.
Get editable text you can actually reuse
Reading a PDF is easy; getting the words back out to reuse them is the annoying part. This tool gives you the raw text so you can paste a paragraph into an email, quote a passage in a report, drop a table's contents into a sheet, or feed the whole document to a script, without retyping anything.
The preview is selectable, so you can copy a snippet directly, or download the full text as a file. If you instead want a formatted PDF back from text, the Text to PDF converter handles that direction.
When extraction is clean, and when it needs a second look
For a normal single-column document exported from an editor, the text comes out clean and complete. Reading order matches the page, and paragraphs and line breaks are preserved, so most files need no cleanup at all.
Where to check twice: pages with two or more columns can interleave, dense tables lose their grid, and a few PDFs built with unusual font encodings can produce odd characters. The PDF to TXT page explains the underlying text-layer mechanics, and methodology covers how it all runs locally.
Frequently asked questions
- Can it pull text out of a photographed or scanned PDF?
- No. The tool needs a real text layer to read. A scan is an image of a page, so there are no characters to copy and the result is empty. Convert the scan with an OCR service first, then bring the searchable PDF back here.
- How is text from a multi-column page ordered?
- Text is read in the order the PDF stores it, which is usually correct for single-column pages. Complex layouts with side-by-side columns or text boxes can interleave, so a quick review of the output is worth it before you rely on it.
- What can I do with the text once it is out?
- The extracted text is plain Unicode you can paste into an editor, quote in a document, feed to a script, or search. Use the Download button to save it as a .txt file, or copy it straight from the preview.
- Is anything about my PDF sent to a server?
- No. The PDF is opened and read in your browser on your device with a local engine. Nothing is uploaded, there is no sign-up, and the tool keeps working with the network disconnected.