Extract the text from a PDF

Reads the text layer a PDF already carries — no retyping, no fighting copy-paste across columns. A scan with no text layer has nothing to extract, and the tool says so rather than handing back an empty file.

How to extract the text from a PDF

• Add a PDF that contains selectable text.
• The text appears on screen, page by page.
• Copy it, or download it as a .txt file.

This runs in your browser. The file is not uploaded, there is no account to create, and nothing is added to the document you download.

Also searched for: pdf to text, copy text from pdf, pdf txt, read pdf text. It is the same tool whichever way you found it.

Questions about extract text

How do I copy text out of a PDF without retyping it?

This reads the text layer the PDF already carries and hands it back as plain text — no fighting copy-paste across columns, no retyping.

Why does it say there is no text to extract?

Because the PDF is a scan: a picture of words rather than words. There is no text layer to read, so the tool says so rather than handing back an empty file. Run it through the OCR tool first and the text will be there.

Is the PDF uploaded?

No. The file is opened, changed and written by this browser tab — it is never sent to a server, so there is no queue to wait in and nothing to delete afterwards. Once the page has loaded you can turn the network off and the tool still works.

Other PDF tools

• OCR PDF — Recognise the text in a scan and lay it invisibly over the image.
• Image to PDF — JPG, PNG or WebP photos into one clean document.
• PDF to JPG — Every page as a JPG or PNG, at the quality you set.
• Count Words — Word count, character count and an estimated reading time.
• Word to PDF — Turn a .docx into a PDF — the words, headings and lists, reflowed.
• PDF to Word — Pull the text out of a PDF into an editable .docx.
• All PDF tools
• How these tools work without uploading anything