PDF to text
Pull the words out of a PDF so you can paste or edit them. It all happens in your browser, so your file never leaves this device.
Drop a PDF here, or click to choose
Your file stays on this device. Nothing is uploaded.
How to extract text from a PDF
- Drop the PDF onto the box above, or press “Choose a PDF file”. Reading starts straight away.
- Check the text in the box headed “The text”.
- Press “Download .txt” to save it, or “Copy all text” to paste it somewhere else.
What PDF to text does
Getting the words out of a PDF as plain text you can paste, edit, search or feed to something else. It reads the text the file already contains, which is instant and exact. It is also impossible when the PDF is a scan, because a scan stores pixels rather than characters.
What it does
- Extracts the text stored in the document, page by page
- Gives you a .txt file or puts the whole thing on your clipboard
- Tells you plainly when a file is a scan with no text to find, instead of handing you an empty download
What it does not do
- Keep bold, headings, tables or any other formatting; plain text is the point
- Read text out of scanned pages or photographs, which needs OCR
- Always preserve reading order, since columns and tables are drawn in an order of the PDF's choosing
Last updated
Need to send this to someone?
Our sister site QRSansar hosts a document and gives you a short link and a QR code for it. That is handy for WhatsApp, a slide, a poster or a printed handout, and it avoids attachment size limits entirely. You can swap the file later and the link and QR code keep working.
Worth being clear about the difference: that is a hosting service, so your file is uploaded to it. Everything on PDFsansar stays on your device; sharing is the one job that cannot.
Share a document on QRSansar →Other tools
All free, and all run in this tab without uploading anything.
PDF to text: common questions
My PDF won't let me select or copy the text. Will this work?
Yes, as long as the file opens without a password. A PDF that opens but refuses to be copied is carrying a flag asking readers to disable selection, and that is all it is: a request. The text was never encrypted, so it comes out here exactly as it would from any other file. If you want the file itself to stop blocking things, Unlock PDF takes the restriction off, and it needs no password either. A PDF that will not open at all without a password is a different matter: its pages really are encrypted, and nothing can read them until it is opened.
Why did I get nothing back?
Your PDF is almost certainly a scan. A scan is a photograph of a page: it looks like text to you, but the file holds pixels, not characters, so there is nothing to extract. Reading those needs OCR: run the file through OCR PDF first, then come back.
Why is the text in a strange order?
Extraction follows the order the PDF draws things in, which is not always the order you read them. Columns, tables and sidebars are the usual culprits. Worth a read before you reuse it.
Does it keep the formatting?
No. You get plain text: no bold, no headings, no tables. That is the point of a .txt file: it drops the styling so the words can go anywhere.
What is this useful for?
Quoting from a report without retyping, feeding a document to something that only reads plain text, counting words, or searching a file your viewer will not search.