PDF to Text Converter

Pull all the selectable text out of a PDF — every page in one pass, with word and character counts — then copy it or download it as a .txt file. All in your browser, nothing uploaded.

Drop a PDF here, or click to browse .pdf · stays on your device

How to Extract Text from a PDF

Three steps, all in your browser.

1

Add your PDF

Drag in a PDF, or click the box to browse. The file stays on your device — it is read locally with the same engine Firefox uses to display PDFs, so nothing is uploaded.

2

Extract

Click Extract text and every page is read in one pass. Line breaks are kept where the PDF records them and pages are separated by blank lines, with a word and character count when it finishes.

3

Copy or download

Copy the text straight to the clipboard, or download the whole thing as a .txt file named after the PDF. Need the pages as pictures instead? Use the PDF to PNG converter.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert a PDF to text?
Drop the PDF onto the converter and click Extract text. Every page is read in your browser and the text appears in the box below, with word and character counts — copy it to the clipboard or download it as a .txt file. Nothing is uploaded to a server.
Why did my PDF come back with no text?
The PDF is almost certainly a scan — its pages are photographs of paper, with no text layer inside. Extracting text from images requires OCR (optical character recognition), which this tool deliberately does not attempt, because browser OCR of scans is slow and error-prone. A quick test: if you cannot select the text with your mouse in a PDF viewer, there is no text layer to extract.
Can I convert a PDF to Word with this?
You can get the text into Word cleanly: extract it here, then paste it into Word or Google Docs and apply your own styles. What you will not get is the original layout — columns, fonts, images and tables are not reconstructed. For a layout-faithful conversion, Microsoft Word itself does the best job: open the PDF directly in Word and it rebuilds the document, imperfectly but impressively. Going the other way — a Word .docx into a PDF — is what the PDF converter does.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The extraction runs entirely in your browser using the same engine Firefox uses to display PDFs. The document is read on your own device and nothing is uploaded, logged or stored — safe for contracts, bank statements and anything private. Closing the tab clears everything.
Does the extracted text keep the original formatting?
Line breaks are preserved where the PDF records them, and pages are separated by blank lines, but a .txt file has no concept of fonts, columns, tables or images, so visual formatting is gone by design. That is usually the point — plain text is what you want for pasting into another document, feeding to a script, indexing or searching. If you need each page as a picture instead, use the PDF to PNG converter.