PDF to Text Extractor
Extract all text from your PDF instantly. Copy to clipboard or download as a .txt file — free, fast, and secure.
Drag & drop your PDF here
or click to browse
.pdf files only · Max 20MB
About This Tool
Extract & reuse text from any PDF
Pull all the text from a PDF in one click — no copy-paste frustration. Paragraph order and line breaks are preserved. Works on multi-page documents with instant word and character counts.
Note: This tool extracts text from searchable PDFs only. Scanned image-based PDFs require OCR technology, which is different.
Copy to Clipboard
One-click copy of the entire extracted text.
Download .txt
Save extracted text as a plain .txt file.
Instant Stats
See page count, word count, and character count instantly.
Secure
File discarded immediately after extraction.
Quick Start
How to Extract Text from a PDF
Upload PDF
Drag and drop your PDF or click to browse — up to 20MB.
Extract Text
Click 'Extract Text' — our server processes and returns the text.
Review Output
See word count and character count instantly.
Copy or Download
Click 'Copy' or 'Download .txt' to save the text.
Use Cases
When to Use PDF to Text
Extracting text from a PDF is the first step in dozens of research, editing, and data processing workflows.
Copy & Paste Content
Extract text from a locked or image-heavy PDF so you can paste it into any editor or document.
Research & Analysis
Pull text from academic papers or reports to analyse, annotate, or summarise the content.
Translation Prep
Extract the plain text from a PDF before pasting it into a translation tool or service.
AI & NLP Processing
Feed raw text extracted from PDFs into language models or NLP pipelines for analysis.
Form Data Extraction
Pull filled-in form data from PDFs for manual review or entry into a database.
Document Indexing
Extract text from PDFs in a library to build a searchable index or catalogue.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the PDF to text extractor free?
Yes, completely free. No account, no subscription, and no watermarks. Simply upload your PDF, click Extract Text, and copy or download the result instantly.
What types of PDFs can this tool extract text from?
This tool extracts text from PDFs that contain real, selectable text — such as those created from Word documents, spreadsheets, or directly from applications. It cannot extract text from scanned or image-based PDFs. For scanned documents you would need an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
Your file is temporarily processed on our secure server solely to extract the text. It is never stored, shared, logged, or retained after the text is returned. The file is discarded immediately after processing.
Does text extraction preserve the original formatting?
The tool extracts plain text and reconstructs lines based on the text positions within the PDF. Paragraphs and page breaks are preserved as best as possible. However, complex formatting such as tables, columns, and headers may not be perfectly preserved — the output is plain text only.
What is the maximum file size?
You can extract text from PDFs up to 20MB in size. If your PDF is larger, consider using our Compress PDF tool first to reduce the file size before extraction.
Can I extract text from a password-protected PDF?
No. Password-protected PDFs cannot be processed. You would need to remove the password protection before uploading the file.