Extract text from a PDF
Pull the words out of a PDF as a plain .txt file. This reads the text layer; it does not read pictures of text.
Text, not layout
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Add your file. Nothing is uploaded — the work happens in this tab.
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PDF · up to 100 MB
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How to extract text from a PDF
- Drop the PDF inDrop one PDF onto the box above. There is nothing to set, so there is no settings panel — a control that changes nothing is worse than no control.
- Read out the text layerSelect PDF to text. The text layer is read page by page in this tab.
- Download the .txtPages are separated by a blank line, so you can tell where each one ended. Output is UTF-8.
Questions
Why did I get an empty file?
The PDF has no text layer — it is a scan, a photograph of a page. There is nothing to extract, and the tool says so rather than handing you a blank file.
Does the layout survive?
No, and the badge on this page says so. You get the words in reading order. Columns, tables and text boxes come out as sequential lines.
What about accented and non-Latin characters?
Output is UTF-8, so accents, Greek, Cyrillic and CJK all survive as long as the PDF embeds the mapping. Some older PDFs do not, and those characters come out wrong in every extractor.
Is the text sent anywhere to be processed?
Nowhere. The work runs in a Web Worker inside this tab. Open your browser’s Network panel while you use the tool — no request carries your file.