How to convert PDF to text
- Select your PDF or drop it onto the page.
- Choose which pages to extract.
- Click convert. The text is read from each page and arranged into lines.
- Preview or copy the text, or download it as a UTF-8 .txt file.
How text extraction works
A PDF stores text as individual pieces placed at exact positions on the page, not as flowing paragraphs. The extractor reads those pieces and their positions, groups them into lines and orders them top to bottom, producing text that reads naturally. The output is plain UTF-8, so accented letters and non-Latin scripts are preserved wherever the PDF maps its characters correctly.
Plain text is the most portable format there is: paste it into an email, a translation tool, a spreadsheet or a script that searches for keywords across many documents.
Scanned PDFs need OCR
If the result is empty or contains only a few words, your PDF is probably a scan: each page is an image, and there is no text to extract. Run it through OCR PDF, which recognises the characters in the images, then extract the text.
Limits of plain text
- Formatting such as bold, fonts and colours is not kept; for that, convert with PDF to Word.
- Multi-column layouts and tables are read line by line, so columns may need tidying.
- Some PDFs use fonts without a proper character map, which can produce wrong or garbled characters; OCR is the fallback for those.
Extraction runs in your browser, so documents are not uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my extracted text empty?
The PDF most likely contains scanned images rather than text. Use OCR PDF to recognise the text first.
Why are some characters wrong or garbled?
Some PDFs embed fonts without information about which character each glyph represents. In that case OCR usually gives better results.
Is formatting kept?
No. A .txt file contains only text and line breaks. Use PDF to Word to keep basic formatting.
Does it support languages other than English?
Yes. Text is saved as UTF-8, so any script stored correctly in the PDF is preserved.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Text is extracted locally in your browser.