TidyFigure

PDF to Text

  • 100% free
  • No sign-up
  • Files stay on your device

Open a PDF and all its text appears, page by page, ready to copy or download as a plain .txt file. This works for PDFs created from Word, Google Docs, websites and most software. Scanned PDFs are pictures of pages, so they contain no text to extract; those need OCR (optical character recognition) instead.

Drop a PDF here or click to choose Text is extracted from every page

Text

Choose a PDF to extract its text.

Your files are processed on your device and never uploaded.

Why extract text from a PDF?

  • Copy a long passage without selecting it page by page.
  • Edit the content in Word or Google Docs: paste the text in and reformat it.
  • Count words in a PDF essay or report (paste the result into the Word Counter).
  • Search and analyse the text, or feed it into translation or AI tools.
  • Accessibility: plain text works well with screen readers and text-to-speech.

How it works

PDFs store text as positioned pieces rather than flowing paragraphs. The extractor (built on PDF.js, the PDF engine in Firefox) reads those pieces in order and starts a new line whenever the text moves down the page. The result keeps the line structure of the original, which makes it easy to tidy up.

Limitations

  • Scanned documents: if the PDF came from a scanner or a phone photo, each page is an image. The tool tells you which pages had no text.
  • Columns and tables: multi-column layouts may come out with columns interleaved, and tables become lines of text separated by spaces.
  • Odd characters: some PDFs use custom font encodings that make extracted text look garbled. Copying from a PDF reader usually gives the same result, because the problem is in the file.
  • Protected PDFs: files that require a password to open can't be read.

Page markers

With "Mark where each page starts" ticked, each page begins with a line like --- Page 3 ---. That makes it easy to find where a quote came from. Untick it for one continuous text.

Private by design

Because extraction is instant, you can also use it to check whether a PDF is searchable before sending it: if no text comes out, the recipient won't be able to search it either.

Text is extracted in your browser. The PDF isn't uploaded anywhere, so it's safe for contracts, statements and other private documents.

Frequently asked questions

How do I extract text from a PDF?

Open the PDF here. The text from every page appears straight away; copy it or download it as a .txt file.

Why is no text extracted from my PDF?

The PDF is probably a scan, meaning each page is an image. Images need OCR software to turn them into text.

Can I convert a PDF to Word?

This tool extracts the text, which you can paste into Word and reformat. Layout, images and tables are not kept.

Does it work with multi-page PDFs?

Yes. Every page is processed, and page markers show where each page starts.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. Extraction happens in your browser.

Last updated October 2026 · More pdf tools