PDF to Text
100% Private · No Upload · Works Offline · Free

PDF to Text

Extract all text from your PDF file instantly. Works offline. No server upload.

Drop your PDF here

or click to browse · Max 200 MB

Accepts .pdf files

How to Extract Text from a PDF — Instantly and Privately

PDF files are everywhere — contracts, research papers, ebooks, invoices — but copying text out of them is often a frustrating experience. Some PDF viewers don't allow selection, others produce garbled output when you paste, and cloud-based converters require you to upload private documents to a third-party server. This free PDF to Text extractor solves all of that. Drop in your PDF and the tool reads it locally using Mozilla's pdf.js library, extracting the raw text from every page without ever sending your file anywhere.

The extraction process works page by page, so you see progress in real time. Once complete, you can view the full document in one continuous block or switch to "View by Page" mode to jump directly to the text from a specific page. Copy to clipboard with one click, or download the entire extracted text as a clean .txt file named after your PDF. Everything runs in your browser — closing the tab discards all data permanently.

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of PDFs does this tool work with?
This tool works with any text-based PDF — documents created digitally in Word, Google Docs, LaTeX, InDesign, or any software that generates native PDF text. It also works with many modern PDFs exported from websites or apps. The tool extracts the actual embedded text characters, so output quality is excellent for standard digital PDFs.
Why is the extracted text empty or garbled for some PDFs?
If the text is empty, garbled, or shows only symbols, the PDF is likely scanned (image-based). Scanned PDFs are essentially photos of pages — there is no embedded text for any tool to extract. These require OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software such as Adobe Acrobat, Tesseract, or an online OCR service. This tool cannot process image-only PDFs. Similarly, PDFs with custom or embedded fonts may occasionally produce character mapping issues — these are limitations of the PDF format itself.
Is my PDF file private? Does it get uploaded anywhere?
Completely private. This tool is a static HTML page — there is no backend server, no database, and no file upload of any kind. Your PDF is read locally by your browser using the open-source pdf.js library. The file content and extracted text never leave your device. This makes it safe to use with confidential contracts, legal documents, medical records, or any sensitive material. Close or refresh the tab and all data is gone.
How accurate is the text extraction?
For standard digital PDFs, extraction accuracy is very high — you get the exact text embedded in the file. Layout and formatting (columns, tables, headers, footers) will not be preserved, as the output is plain text. Text extracted from multi-column layouts may appear merged on a single line. The page separator markers (── Page N ──) help you orient where each page's content begins. For precise formatting preservation, consider converting to Word or using a full-featured PDF editor.
What file formats can I export the extracted text as?
You can copy the extracted text directly to your clipboard, or download it as a .txt file named after your original PDF. The text file uses UTF-8 encoding, making it compatible with all major text editors, word processors, and code editors. If you need the text in a Word document or other format, paste the .txt content into your preferred application. Markdown-compatible editors will also accept the plain text as-is.
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