Extract text from PDF
Reads the text layer of a PDF and gives it to you as plain text – handy for quoting, translating or editing the content elsewhere.
Processed locally: your files are handled entirely in this browser and are never uploaded to a server.
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How it works
- Choose a PDF file.
- Optionally limit the pages and choose whether paragraphs should be joined.
- Click “Extract text”, then copy the result or save it as .txt.
Notes and limitations
- Only PDFs with a real text layer contain extractable text. Scanned pages are images; this tool does not perform text recognition (OCR).
- Layout such as columns, tables and footnotes is reduced to plain text. The reading order depends on how the PDF was created.
- Words split by a hyphen at the end of a line are rejoined when paragraphs are merged.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the result empty?
The PDF probably consists of scanned images without a text layer. Text recognition (OCR) would be required, which this tool does not offer.