PDF to Text

Extracts all the text content from a PDF into a plain .txt file.

No upload — runs on your device
Free, no sign-up
No watermark

What PDF to Text does

Extracts all the text content from a PDF into a plain .txt file. Extracting a PDF's text into a plain .txt file strips away all formatting and layout, leaving just the words — useful for pulling content into another document, feeding it into another tool, or simply reading it without a PDF viewer. This works on PDFs that already contain a text layer; a scanned PDF with no underlying text needs OCR PDF run first to create one.

Works well with: PDF to Word · OCR PDF · PDF to Excel

Runs 100% in your browser

PDFHook processes this file using JavaScript on your own device. It's never uploaded, stored, or seen by anyone else — and it works even if your connection drops mid-way.

HOW TO USE IT

PDF to Text in 3 steps

Upload your PDF

Choose the document you want text from.

Extraction runs automatically

Text from every page is pulled out in order.

Download the text file

A plain .txt file with clear page breaks.

Key features

Extracts text from every page
Plain, portable .txt output
Page breaks are clearly marked
Page breaks are clearly marked in the output
Best paired with OCR PDF first for scanned documents

Practical use cases

A developer needs to feed a document's text content into another tool or script.
Someone wants to quickly search or skim a document's content without opening a full PDF viewer.
A writer needs to pull text from a PDF into a plain text editor for further editing.

Related terminology

Text layer: The underlying selectable, searchable text content of a PDF page — present in most PDFs created digitally, but absent from a plain scanned image until OCR is applied.

Frequently asked questions

Does this work on scanned PDFs?

Only if the PDF already has a text layer. For scanned images with no text layer, run OCR PDF first.

Is the text formatting preserved?

Line breaks are preserved as closely as possible, but visual formatting like columns, bold, or fonts is not.

What happens to images in the PDF?

Only text content is extracted — images, graphics, and other non-text elements are not included in the plain text output.

Are tables converted into a readable format?

Table text is extracted in reading order but without preserved column alignment, since plain text has no concept of a table structure.

Can I copy text from a PDF without opening it in a reader?

Yes — convert the PDF to text and every page's text content is extracted directly into a plain .txt file you can open anywhere.

Is there a free PDF text extractor online?

Yes — this PDF text extractor online is free; it works as a PDF to TXT converter to extract text from PDF and convert PDF to plain text, so you can copy text from PDF without opening a reader.