PDF to Text. Every word, no upload.

How to use the PDF to Text tool

This tool pulls the selectable text out of a PDF and gives it back as plain text you can search, copy or save. It reads the text layer of each page with the pdf.js library, then rebuilds lines from where each piece of text sits on the page. It suits anyone who needs the words from a report, contract or paper without retyping them. It cannot read scanned pages, which are pictures of text.

Step by step

1. 1
   Add a PDF

   Drop a PDF on the card that says Drop a PDF here, or click it to pick a file. On a keyboard, focus the card and press Enter. Every page is read straight away and a progress bar shows Extracting page 3 of 12 and so on.

2. 2
   Limit the pages if you need to

   Type in Page range to keep only some pages, for example 1-5, 8. Leave it empty for every page. Numbers past the last page are dropped, and anything that is not a number or a range shows a warning and falls back to all pages.

3. 3
   Choose the layout mode

   Flowing text joins lines back into paragraphs, starting a new paragraph where the gap between lines is noticeably larger than usual. Preserve lines keeps every line break as it appears on the page, which suits tables, lists, code and poetry.

4. 4
   Set the separators and clean up options

   Include page separators puts a marker before each page, and Page separator style picks it: a dashed line, an equals line, [Page N], Blank line only or Form feed. Merge hyphenated line breaks rejoins words split across lines in Flowing text. Trim trailing spaces removes spaces at line ends. All three boxes start ticked.

5. 5
   Search the text

   Type in the Search in extracted text box to highlight every match in Combined text. Tick Match case to make the search case sensitive. The count next to the box shows how many matches were found.

6. 6
   Copy or save

   Press Copy all for the combined text, or open a page under Per-page text and press Copy page N for just that page. Download .txt saves the combined text as a file named after your PDF. Clear closes the document.

Reading the result

• The pills above the text show the pages kept out of the total, for example 3 / 12 pages, then the word, character and line counts of the combined text.
• Each entry under Per-page text shows that page's word and character count. A page that says no text on this page has no text layer.
• If the selected pages hold fewer than 20 characters in total, a warning says the PDF is probably a scan. Scans need OCR software, which this tool does not include.
• Lines are rebuilt from their position on the page, top to bottom and left to right. On a two column page, text at the same height in both columns is joined into one line, so check the order before you reuse it.

Tips and common mistakes

• Pages come out in the order you type them, so 8, 1-3 puts page 8 first.
• Use Preserve lines for tables and invoices. Flowing text can merge separate cells into one sentence.
• If words run together or split oddly, switch layout mode and compare. Every option change rebuilds the text without reading the PDF again.
• Password protected PDFs cannot be opened here and show an Extraction failed message. Remove the password in your PDF reader first.
• Form feed is an invisible page break character that some printers and text tools honor. Pick a visible separator if you will read the file yourself.

Privacy and limits

The PDF is read in your browser by the pdf.js library, which is loaded from this site. The file and the extracted text are not uploaded or saved, and Clear or closing the tab removes them. There is no size limit in the code, but very large files take longer and use more memory.

Back to the tool

Everything a text extractor should do.

• Extract text from any PDF instantly, no upload, no account, no size limit.
• Pick a page range like 1-5 or 8, 12 to pull text from just the pages you need.
• Choose the layout, flowing paragraphs (with hyphenated line breaks merged) or preserved original lines.
• Search the result with live highlighting, a match count and optional case sensitivity.
• Copy one page or all of it, and control how each page break is marked in the output.
• Download a .txt file named after your PDF, ready to paste into any editor.

Frequently asked questions.

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