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PDF to Text

Convert PDF to text in your browser: extract all the text of a text-based PDF as a .txt file or copy it, with word and character counts and the option to keep original line breaks.

Your files are processed on your device and never sent to a server.

How to use PDF to Text

  1. Click "Choose a PDF".

  2. Optional: type the pages to extract and tick "Keep the original line breaks".

  3. Click "Convert to Text", then copy the text or "Download .txt".

When to use PDF to Text

  • Copying from PDFs that copy badly. Get clean paragraphs instead of broken lines.
  • Word counts. See the words and characters in a PDF essay or article.
  • Feeding text into other tools. Paste into translators, AI assistants or search.
  • Accessibility. Plain text works well with screen readers and text-to-speech.

Limits and privacy

  • Works with text-based PDFs. Scanned PDFs need OCR, which is not available yet; the tool tells you when a PDF is a scan.
  • Text from multi-column layouts may come out in an unexpected order.
  • One PDF at a time, up to 100MB. PDFs are processed in your browser with pdf-lib and pdf.js, which are served from this site. Your file is not sent to a server, and nothing is kept after you close the page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I extract text from a scanned PDF?

Not with this tool yet. Scanned PDFs contain pictures of pages, not text, so they need OCR (optical character recognition). The tool detects scanned PDFs and tells you. For now, Google Drive can OCR a PDF when you open it with Google Docs.

Why is the text jumbled?

PDFs store text in pieces placed on the page, not in reading order. The tool rebuilds lines and paragraphs from their positions, which works well for normal documents. Multi-column pages, tables and text boxes can still come out in an odd order. Some PDFs also use fonts without a Unicode map, which produces wrong characters.

Can I copy text from a locked PDF?

If the PDF needs a password to open, unlock it first with Unlock PDF (you need the password). If it opens without a password but has copying disabled in its permissions, this tool cannot read it either until those restrictions are removed by the owner.

Is my PDF sent to a server?

No. Text is extracted in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server or stored.

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Something not working with PDF to Text? Report a problem.