PDF Extract Text

Extract all text content from PDF pages. Copy the output or download as a plain text file.

PDF Extract Text tool

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Example

Input: A 5-page PDF whose first page includes the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Result: Text listed page by page, with that sentence under Page 1, ready to copy or download as a .txt file

pdf.js reads the text stored in each page. There is no OCR, so a scanned page with no text layer shows "No text content found on this page".

  1. Upload the PDF file from which you want to extract text content.
  2. Wait for the tool to parse all pages and display the extracted text organized by page number.
  3. Expand any page in the page-by-page text output to read the content you need.
  4. Use the Copy button on an expanded page to copy its text, or click "Copy All" for the entire document.
  5. Optionally click "Download as .txt File" to save the complete extracted text as a plain text file for further use.

Copying Text Out of a PDF

PDF Extract Text pulls the text out of a PDF so you can copy it or save it as a .txt file. The text is shown page by page, and each page has its own copy button.

It helps when you need to quote a report, reuse text from a brochure, or paste a document into another program without retyping it. The summary counts pages, pages with text, words and characters. Copy All and the .txt download include every page, each under a heading such as --- Page 2 ---.

It only works on PDFs that contain real text, like files saved from Word or a web page. A scanned page is just a picture of text, so there is nothing to extract. Those pages show No text content found on this page. Converting a scan to text needs OCR (optical character recognition), which this tool does not do. If Pages with Text is much lower than Pages, the file is probably scanned.

The output is plain text, with one line for each line on the page. Bold, fonts and layout are gone, and paragraphs are not separated by blank lines. Tables come out as rows of text without columns. Two columns side by side can be merged line by line, so check the result for multi-column layouts. Spacing between words can also be off in some PDFs.

The text is read with Mozilla pdf.js in your browser, and its helper script loads from a public CDN. Your file is not uploaded. A password-protected PDF must be unlocked first with PDF Unlock. For Word files, use the Word to Text Extractor.

Frequently Asked Questions

The PDF is most likely a scan or a photo, so its pages are images rather than text. This tool reads the text layer stored in the file and does not do OCR. Run the file through an OCR app first, or open it in a program with text recognition, then extract the text.
Open that page in the page list by clicking its heading. Its text appears with a Copy button next to it, which copies only that page. Copy All and the .txt download include every page, each marked with a line such as --- Page 3 ---.
The tool starts a new line whenever the text moves to a new height on the page. When two columns sit side by side, lines at the same height can be joined into one. For those files, copy one column at a time from your PDF viewer, or tidy the output in a text editor.
No. The output is plain text with a line break for each line on the page. Bold, italic, fonts, colors and table borders are removed, and paragraphs are not separated by blank lines. If you need the layout, a PDF editor that exports to Word is a better fit.

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