PDF to Text Converter
Choose a PDF and its text appears page by page, ready to copy or save as a plain text file. Scanned documents without a text layer are detected and flagged.
About this tool
Most PDFs produced by word processors, browsers and export tools contain a text layer: the characters are stored alongside their positions on the page. This converter reads that layer with the pdf.js engine, reassembles the lines in reading order and outputs plain text, which is what you need for searching, quoting, translating or feeding into other software.
Layout is flattened: columns, tables and footnotes come out as consecutive lines, since a text file has no boxes. Scanned PDFs are just pictures of pages; they contain no text layer and would need OCR, which this tool does not perform. Processing happens entirely in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the output empty?
- The PDF is probably a scan, so there is no text to extract. It would need OCR software to recognise the characters in the images.
- Are tables preserved?
- Cell contents are kept in reading order, but the grid is not. For spreadsheets, copy the text and split it by columns afterwards.
- Can it handle large files?
- Yes. Pages are processed one at a time, and a progress counter shows where it is. Very large files take a few seconds.
- Is the document uploaded?
- No. Text extraction runs entirely on your device.