Extract Text from PDF Online
Copy all text from PDF pages directly in your browser without uploading files.
Drop files here or click to upload
Max 100 MB
Extract all readable text from PDF documents directly in your browser. The tool uses the PDF text layer to identify characters and their positions, then reconstructs readable paragraphs you can copy or download as a plain text file.
Last reviewed: June 2026
How to use this tool
- 1Upload a PDF file using the drop area or file picker.
- 2Optionally select specific page numbers to extract from.
- 3Click Process to extract text locally in your browser.
- 4Preview the extracted text and download as a .txt file.
Common use cases
- Copy text from a PDF when copy-paste is disabled or broken.
- Extract article content for quoting or note-taking.
- Pull text from PDF reports for use in other documents.
Technical notes
- Uses the PDF text layer — only works on text-based PDFs, not scanned images.
- Text order follows the internal PDF structure which may differ from visual reading order in complex layouts.
- Characters are grouped into lines based on their vertical position coordinates.
Private by design
This tool runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded to our server while using the tool.
Limitations
- Cannot extract text from scanned or image-based PDFs — use OCR tool instead.
- Complex multi-column layouts may produce out-of-order text.
- Embedded fonts with non-standard encoding may produce garbled output.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can this tool extract text from scanned PDFs?
No. This tool reads the embedded text layer. For scanned documents, use our OCR tool which recognizes text in images.
Why is the extracted text out of order?
PDFs store text in drawing order, not reading order. Complex layouts like multi-column pages may produce text that appears jumbled.
Is my file uploaded to a server?
No. All processing happens locally in your browser. Your file never leaves your device.
Can I extract text from specific pages only?
Yes. Enter a page range before processing to limit extraction to those pages.
Why do some characters appear as squares or question marks?
This usually happens when the PDF uses a non-standard embedded font with custom character encoding that cannot be mapped to Unicode.