Extract Text from PDF

Turn a PDF back into editable text

PDFs are great for keeping a document looking exactly the way it was designed, but that same rigidity makes the words inside them hard to reuse. This tool reads the text layer embedded in your PDF and hands it back as plain, copyable text you can paste into an email, a document, a spreadsheet, or a notes app. It works page by page through the whole file, so a 40-page report comes out as readily as a one-page invoice.

Private by design — nothing is uploaded

Your PDF is opened and processed entirely inside your own browser using the pdf.js engine. The file never travels to a server, so there is no upload wait and nothing for anyone else to store. That makes it safe for contracts, statements, resumes, and other documents you would rather not hand to a website.

How to use it

1. Click the file box above and choose a PDF from your device.
2. Wait a moment while each page is scanned — progress shows below the box.
3. Read the extracted text in the panel that appears.
4. Press Copy text to put it on your clipboard, or Download .txt to save it as a file.
5. Use Clear to reset and load a different PDF.

FAQ

Why did I get little or no text?

The PDF is probably a scan or a photo saved as a PDF, which stores pages as images with no text layer. This tool reads real text, not pictures of text, so a scanned page will come back empty. You would need an OCR tool for those.

Does the formatting come through?

You get the words and line breaks, but not fonts, columns, tables, or images. Complex multi-column layouts may read in an unexpected order because that reflects how the text is stored in the file.

Is there a file-size or page limit?

No fixed limit. Because everything runs on your own machine, very large PDFs simply take a little longer and depend on your device's memory.

Do you keep my document?

No. The file is processed locally and nothing is sent anywhere or saved. Refresh the page and it is gone.