PDF to Text
Extract the text from a PDF in reading order — copy it or save a .txt, with no upload and no OCR guesswork.
How to Use PDF to Text in 3 Steps
Drop a PDF
The first page renders so you can confirm the file. Scanned PDFs that are only images have no text layer — the tool will tell you.
Choose the Layout
Reading order joins lines into paragraphs and keeps blank lines between blocks; Raw lines gives you exactly one line per text line, handy for tables and code.
Extract, Copy or Download
Click Extract Text. Review it in the output pane, Copy it to the clipboard, or Download a .txt named after the PDF.
PDF to Text — Frequently Asked Questions
It says the PDF has no text layer — why?
Scanned documents and photos saved as PDF contain only images, so there is no text to extract. This tool deliberately ships without OCR (recognition engines are 10 MB+ downloads); it extracts the real text layer only.
Why is the order wrong on some pages?
PDFs store text as positioned fragments, not paragraphs. Reading order sorts by line then column and works for most documents; multi-column layouts or floating captions can interleave. Switch to Raw lines to see the fragments as laid out.
Are hyphenated line breaks joined?
Yes, in Reading order mode words split with a hyphen at the end of a line are rejoined. Raw lines leaves them untouched.
Can I extract a single page?
Enter a range in Settings, e.g. 3 or 2-5, 9. Leave it empty for every page.
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The document is read by PDF.js (the engine Firefox uses) and rewritten by pdf-lib entirely inside your browser. Nothing is transmitted or stored.