Convert PDF to Text

Pull the plain text out of a PDF, with no formatting attached.

100% Free No installation required Secure & private

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Just the words

A .txt file has no fonts, no layout and no images - which is exactly why it is useful.

Text with nothing attached

The output is plain text, so it pastes cleanly into anything without carrying fonts, colours or spacing rules along with it.

Easy to search and process

Plain text is what scripts, spreadsheets and search tools handle best. It is the format to choose when the words are going to be processed rather than read.

Small and universal

A .txt file opens in every editor on every system, and is a fraction of the size of the PDF it came from.

Extract the text from a PDF

Copying out of a PDF by hand is unreliable - selections jump columns, headers and footers come along, and line breaks land in the wrong places. Converting the whole document to text gives you the content in one pass, in reading order.

This is the route to take when you want to quote from a report, feed a document into another tool, or simply keep a searchable copy of something that exists only as a PDF.

A file you can open and edit

Why plain text rather than Word

Converting to Word keeps the formatting, which is right when you intend to keep editing the document as a document. Converting to text deliberately throws it away.

That is the better choice when the words are going somewhere else entirely: into a script, a database, a translation tool or a plain-text note. Nothing unexpected travels with them.

The words are yours to edit, but the page layout may change

Convert PDF to text in the browser

Nothing to install and no account needed. The converter runs in a browser tab on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.

Upload from your device, from a link or from cloud storage, up to 50 MB without registering.

What happens to the document you upload

Converting out of PDF means handing over the finished thing. Here is what the service does with it.

An encrypted connection

Traffic between your browser and the servers is encrypted with TLS using modern ciphers, and personal data is stored encrypted.

No human reads it

The conversion is fully automated. Nobody looks into your file or makes copies of it, and no backup of a user file is kept.

Your copyright is untouched

You keep the ownership of both the source and the converted file. Nothing is used to train AI models, and the GDPR governs the processing.

How to extract text from PDF documents

Upload your PDF document.
Click on "Start".

Frequently asked questions about PDF to text

Is it free to convert PDF to text?

Yes. PDF to Text is free and needs no account. Files up to 50 MB can be converted without registering, and a free account or a paid plan raises that limit.

Does PDF to text keep the formatting?

No, and that is deliberate. Plain text has no fonts, no colours and no layout. If you want the formatting kept, convert to Word instead.

Will it work on a scanned PDF?

A scan is an image of a page, so there is no text to extract directly. Run it through the searchable-PDF tool first to add a text layer, then convert.

What file do I get back?

A .txt file, which opens in any text editor on any operating system.

Is it safe to convert a PDF to text online?

Yes. Traffic runs over TLS with modern ciphers and personal data is stored encrypted. No person opens your document at any point, no backup of a user file is kept, and you keep the copyright of both the original and the converted file. The service operates under the GDPR.