PDF to Text
Extract all selectable text from a PDF. Scanned image-only PDFs need OCR first.
Drop a PDF here or click to upload
Stays on your device
How to Use PDF to Text Extractor
To extract text from a PDF, upload your file using the upload area. You can optionally specify a page range (e.g. 1-5 to extract only the first five pages). Click Extract and the tool reads all selectable text from the PDF pages and displays it in the output area.
The extracted text can be copied to your clipboard or downloaded as a .txt file. This tool is useful for extracting content from reports, ebooks, or technical documents for editing, searching, or importing into other systems. All extraction happens in your browser using PDF.js.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why might the extracted text look garbled or out of order? expand_more
PDFs store text in the rendering order of the visual layout, not the reading order. Complex multi-column layouts, tables, and decorative PDFs may produce text that requires manual reordering.
Can I extract text from scanned PDFs? expand_more
No. Scanned PDFs are images and contain no selectable text. Text extraction only works on PDFs created from digital sources where the text is encoded. For scanned documents, OCR software is required.
Can I extract text from specific pages only? expand_more
Yes. Enter a page range in the pages field to extract text from only the specified pages. This is useful for large PDFs where you only need a chapter or section.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server? expand_more
No. All text extraction uses PDF.js running entirely in your browser. Your PDF never leaves your device.
Why is some text from my PDF missing in the extracted output? expand_more
Some PDFs use custom fonts or character encodings that PDF.js cannot decode. Images of text, embedded charts, or text rendered as vectors will not be extracted as selectable text.
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