How to extract text from a PDF
- Drop a PDF on the box above or click Choose a PDF. The tool shows the page count and size.
- To read only some pages, type them in the Pages box, for example
1-3, 5, 8-. Leave it empty for the whole document. - Click Extract text. A progress bar shows which page is being read.
- The text appears in a box. Switch on Add a "Page N" line before each page to keep track of the pages, or Join the lines of each paragraph to remove line breaks that only come from the width of the page.
- Click Copy text or Download .txt. The file is named after your PDF, for example
report.txt.
The text is read inside your browser by the open-source pdf.js engine. Your PDF is never uploaded, and there is no sign-up, watermark or limit on pages.
What this tool can and cannot read
A PDF can store text in two ways. In a digital PDF, made from a word processor, a web page or a report generator, the letters are real characters with positions on the page. This tool reads them directly, which is fast and exact. In a scanned PDF, each page is just a photograph of paper, so there are no characters to read. If the tool finds almost no text, it says so and links to two other tools: PDF to JPG, which turns the pages into images, and Image to Text, which uses OCR to recognise the letters in pictures.
Text comes out in reading order as the PDF stores it. The tool rebuilds lines from the vertical position of words and adds spaces where words are visibly apart. Paragraph gaps become a blank line. Headers, footers and page numbers are included because they are part of the page.
Worked example
You have a 24-page annual report and need the text of the summary on pages 3 to 5 for an email. Type 3-5, click Extract text and, because the summary is set in two narrow columns, switch on Join the lines of each paragraph. The broken lines become flowing paragraphs, ready to paste. The statistics under the box show something like "412 words · 2,567 characters · 3 pages". If you later need the whole report with page markers for searching, clear the Pages box, switch on the page lines and download the .txt file.
Troubleshooting
- Odd symbols or missing accents. Some PDFs use fonts without a mapping from glyphs to letters, so the text cannot be recovered. OCR on the page images is the reliable alternative.
- Words stuck together or split. This depends on how the PDF was produced. Lines are separated by positions, so unusual spacing can occasionally merge or split words.
- Tables. Cells arrive as lines of text in row order. Paste into a spreadsheet and use text-to-columns to rebuild the table.
- Password-protected PDFs cannot be read until you remove the password in a PDF viewer.
- Copying is not allowed? If you own the document, you can usually extract its text here. Respect the rights of the author when you reuse content that belongs to others.
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The text is read inside your browser with an open-source engine served from this site. The file and the text never leave your device.
Why did I get no text, or only a few characters?
The PDF is probably a scan: its pages are pictures, not text. The tool then says so and links to the PDF to JPG and Image to Text tools, which convert the pages to images and read them with OCR.
Will it keep the layout, tables and columns?
It rebuilds lines and paragraphs from the positions of the words, which is good for ordinary text. Tables and multi-column layouts come out as lines of text and may need tidying. Use Join the lines of each paragraph to remove line breaks inside paragraphs.
Does it work with Vietnamese and other languages?
Yes, as long as the PDF stores real text with a proper font encoding. Accents and tone marks are copied exactly as stored. If the result shows odd symbols, the PDF's fonts have no text mapping and OCR is the alternative.
Can I extract only some pages?
Yes. Type pages such as 1-3, 5, 8- in the Pages box. Leave it empty to read the whole document. You can add a Page N line before each page.