Convert PDF to Text Online
This free PDF to text converter extracts selectable text from PDF documents and lets you copy or download the result as a plain text file.
You don't need to install desktop software or upload your document to a remote PDF processing service. The extraction is performed directly in your browser.
How to Extract Text from a PDF
- Select or drag your PDF into the upload area.
- Click the Extract Text button.
- Wait while the PDF pages are processed.
- Review or edit the extracted text.
- Copy the text or download it as a TXT file.
What PDFs Can This Tool Read?
This tool is designed primarily for PDFs that contain an actual text layer. These include documents created from Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, web pages and other digital document software.
What About Scanned PDFs?
A scanned PDF is usually made from images of pages rather than actual selectable text. In that situation, a normal PDF text extractor cannot recognize the words contained in the images.
Scanned documents require OCR (Optical Character Recognition). You can add a dedicated OCR PDF tool to your website for this type of document.
PDF to Text vs PDF to Word
PDF to Text extracts the document's text into a simple TXT file. It generally does not preserve the original document's formatting, images or page layout.
PDF to Word is intended for users who want an editable document while attempting to preserve more of the original formatting and structure.