Convert PDF to Text

Pull all the text out of a PDF into a plain TXT file you can search, edit and reuse anywhere.

Extract Text From a PDF — Content Without the Layout

Sometimes the words are all you want. You need to quote a clause from a contract, feed a report into a script, search a long document for one figure, or move the content of a manual into a new system — and the PDF's careful layout is simply in the way. Extracting to plain text gives you the content stripped of columns, headers and styling, in a file that every program on earth can read.

Upload your PDF and the text is pulled out and written to a TXT file, ready to download. Because plain text carries no formatting, the result is tiny compared with the original document and opens instantly in Notepad, TextEdit, any code editor or any script. It is ideal for searching, indexing, copying into another application or feeding into automated processing.

There is one important limitation. This tool reads the text layer that is stored inside the PDF, so it works on documents exported from Word, Excel, a browser or a layout program. A PDF made by scanning paper contains photographs of the page rather than characters, so there is no text layer to extract and the result will be empty — that case needs optical character recognition. If you want the wording back with its formatting intact, use PDF to Word instead. The service is free and your file is removed from the server after processing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I extract text from a PDF?

Upload the document on this page and download the resulting TXT file — the whole extraction usually takes only a few seconds.

Why is my output file empty?

The PDF is almost certainly a scan. Scanned pages are images of text rather than text itself, so there is nothing to extract without optical character recognition.

Is the formatting preserved?

No, and deliberately so — plain text has no formatting. You get the words in reading order without fonts, columns or styling. Use PDF to Word if you need the layout kept.

What about tables?

Table contents are extracted as text, but the grid itself cannot be represented in a plain text file. For tables you can work with, convert to Word or Excel-friendly formats instead.

Which encoding is used?

The text is written as UTF-8, the standard encoding that supports every alphabet, so accented characters and non-Latin scripts come out correctly.

Is the tool free?

Yes — free, without registration, with no daily limit, and your uploaded PDF is deleted from the server once the extraction is complete.