About this tool
Sometimes you only need the words from a PDF, for notes, a summary or to paste into an email or form. This tool reads the text that is stored inside the PDF and gives it to you as plain text that you can copy or download. It works in your browser, so the document is not uploaded.
How to use it
- Choose your PDF.
- Select Extract text. The tool reads every page in order.
- Copy the text, or download it as a TXT file.
When this is useful
- Copy text from a PDF when you cannot select it in some apps.
- Get the words of a report for a summary or notes.
- Reuse text from a document in an email or a form.
- Check what text is inside a PDF before sharing it.
Tips for best results
- Use Extract pages first if you only need part of a long PDF.
- Open the TXT file in a text editor and check names and numbers.
- For scans, retype the text or use a scanner app with OCR.
- Keep the original PDF, because the text file has no layout.
Good to know
The result is plain text. Tables, columns, images and formatting are not included.
Questions and answers
Why did it find no text?
The PDF is probably a scan, which is a set of pictures of pages, so there is no text inside to extract. Reading text from pictures needs OCR, which this tool does not do yet.
Will the layout be kept?
Only the reading order and the line breaks. Columns, tables and fonts are not kept, because the result is plain text.
Does it work with Urdu or Hindi text?
It extracts whatever text the PDF contains, including Urdu and Hindi. Some PDFs store such text in a way that comes out garbled, which depends on how the PDF was made.
Is there a page limit?
There is no fixed limit. Very long PDFs simply take longer to read on a phone.
Your files stay with you
This tool opens and changes your file inside your own browser. Your documents are not uploaded to a server. Keep a copy of your original file, and on a shared computer delete downloaded files when you are done.