Extract Text from PDF
Extract the selectable text of your PDF, page by page
Click or drop a PDF hereChoose a PDF
About Extract Text from PDF
Extract Text from PDF reads the text layer of a PDF, the text you could select in a viewer, and gives it back as plain text, with line breaks and spaces rebuilt from the positions on the page. Take every page or only the pages you list, with or without a heading naming each page, then copy the text or save it as a .txt file. It does not read pictures: a scanned page has no text layer, and the tool then suggests OCR PDF. The file is read in your browser with PDF.js.
How to extract text from a PDF
- 1Choose the PDF.
- 2Optionally list pages in "Pages (empty: all)", and uncheck the page-heading checkbox for plain text.
- 3Click "Extract text".
- 4Copy the result with "Copy", or click "Download" to save it as a .txt file named after your PDF.
Formats and limits
- Input
- PDF with a text layer
- Output
- Plain text on the page and a .txt file in UTF-8
- Pages
- All, or a list such as 1-3, 5, 8-
- Scanned pages
- No text to read; use OCR PDF
Where your file is processed
PDF.js reads your file inside the browser, and neither the PDF nor the extracted text is uploaded. If extraction fails, a cleaned error message is reported to us with the tool's name, the file type, an approximate size, and your browser's name and version, never the file name or any text. For files up to 25 MB, accents drawn as separate glyphs are repaired in the copy given to PDF.js, never in your file.
Frequently asked questions
Can I extract text from a scanned PDF?
No. A scan stores each page as a picture, so there is no text layer to read. When no page has text, the tool says so and suggests OCR PDF, which recognizes the letters in the pictures and can also give you a searchable PDF.
Will multi-column pages come out in the right order?
No, not always. Line breaks and spaces are rebuilt from the positions of the text, but the order is the order in which the PDF stores its text. When a PDF stores its columns interleaved, lines of different columns alternate in the result.
Can I get the text without the page headings?
Yes. Uncheck the page-heading checkbox above the button and the pages are separated by a blank line only. Leave it checked when you need to know which page each passage came from.
Tips and tricks
- ✓For a file that mixes typed and scanned pages, OCR PDF reads both and leaves the pages that already have text without a second layer.