PDF to Text
Extract text from a PDF online, free. Copy it or download a .txt file — your PDF never leaves your browser.
Drag & drop PDF files here
or browse files
Supports PDF files only • No file size limit
This reads the text a PDF already stores. It doesn't read text inside pictures, so scans need OCR — which this tool doesn't do.
Runs entirely in your browser. Your file never leaves your device — nothing is uploaded to us.
Get the Words Out of a PDF
Upload a PDF and read back the text it already contains, page by page. Copy the lot to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file, with each page clearly labelled so you can find your place in a long document.
Extraction runs on your device using the browser's own PDF engine. The file is never uploaded, which makes this safe for invoices, contracts, statements and anything else you would rather not hand to a website.
What This Reads, and What It Cannot
A PDF usually stores its text as actual characters — that is why you can select a sentence in a PDF reader and copy it. This tool reads exactly that layer, so the words come out as the document stored them.
A scanned page is different. It holds a photograph of a page, with no characters behind it, so there is nothing to extract. Reading those needs OCR, which recognises letter shapes in an image, and this tool deliberately does not do that. If a PDF has no text layer, the tool says so rather than handing back an empty file.
A quick test: open the PDF in any reader and try to select a line of text with your cursor. If you can, this tool will read it. If the cursor draws a box instead, it is a scan.
How Pages Are Handled
Every page is labelled and separated by a rule, so a fifty-page document stays navigable rather than becoming one wall of text. Pages that contain no text are still listed and marked, because silently skipping them would misrepresent a ten-page scan as a two-page document.
Line breaks follow what the PDF itself records. Columns, tables and headers come out in the order the file stores them, which is usually reading order but is not guaranteed to match the visual layout. This is text extraction, not page reconstruction.
Where This Is Useful
Pulling product descriptions out of a supplier catalogue, lifting figures from a statement into a spreadsheet, quoting a clause from a contract, or getting the body of a report into a document you can actually edit.
For sellers specifically, it is a quick way to get text out of a supplier's PDF price list or specification sheet without retyping it — which you can then paste straight into a listing draft.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I extract text from a PDF?+
Upload the PDF and the text appears automatically, page by page. You can then copy all of it to your clipboard or download it as a .txt file named after the original PDF.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?+
No. The PDF is opened and read in your browser, and closing the tab discards it. Nothing is sent to us, which makes it safe for invoices, contracts and statements.
Why does it say my PDF has no selectable text?+
Because it is a scan. A scanned PDF holds a picture of a page rather than characters, so there is nothing to extract. Reading those requires OCR, which this tool does not do. If you can select text with your cursor in a PDF reader, it will work here.
Will the layout be preserved?+
No. Page boundaries and line breaks are kept, but columns, tables and precise positioning are not reconstructed. Text comes out in the order the PDF stores it, which is usually reading order.
Can it open a password-protected PDF?+
No. If a PDF requires a password to open, the tool says so instead of failing silently. Remove the password in a PDF reader first, then extract.
What happens if only some pages have text?+
The pages that have text are extracted normally, and pages without any are listed and marked so you can see exactly which ones came up empty. The summary also tells you how many pages had no text.
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