Sometimes you need to quote a few sentences from a PDF you received, or carry the content of a report over into another document. But PDFs are often hard to drag-select, and copying from them can scramble the line breaks. The Extract Text tool pulls the text layer out of your document in one pass so you can copy it cleanly or save it as a TXT file.
Add a file and extraction starts right away; when it's done, you see the total page count alongside the number of characters extracted. You can review the extracted text on screen, copy it to your clipboard with the 'Copy all' button, or download it as a TXT file.
Everything runs inside your browser, so your document is never sent anywhere. Even with sensitive PDFs like contracts or internal reports, you can safely pull out just the text with peace of mind.
How to Use
- 1
Select a PDF
Add the PDF you want to pull text from and extraction starts automatically — no extra button to press.
- 2
Check the result
The extracted text appears on screen, along with the page count and the character count.
- 3
Copy or save
Use 'Copy all' to put it on your clipboard, or 'Download TXT' to save it as a file.
When It's Useful
Quoting & excerpting
Handy for pulling the paragraphs you need from a paper or report PDF to quote in another document.
Searching & organizing content
Save the full text of a long PDF as TXT, then search and organize it by keyword in your editor.
Feeding translators & summarizers
Copy the extracted text and paste it into a translation or summarization service to work with it.
Checking character count
The result shows the total character count, so you can quickly gauge how much text there is.
Tips
- Files extract automatically once added, so there's no separate convert button to press.
- Scanned image PDFs have no text data and won't extract. For those you'll need OCR (text recognition).
- If the character count comes back as 0, it's most likely a scan with no text layer.
- Tables and multi-column layouts may extract in a reading order that differs from the original.
- If you only need part of the text, tidy it up in a text editor after extracting.
- TXT files are saved as UTF-8, so non-Latin characters stay intact and there are no encoding worries when opening them in other programs.
FAQ
Can it pull text from a scanned PDF?
A scan is an image, not text, so nothing is extracted. It only works on PDFs that have a real text layer.
Does it handle non-Latin text well?
Yes. PDFs that contain real text data extract fine, and the TXT is saved as UTF-8, so characters won't be garbled.
The line breaks differ from the original.
PDF structure forces us to estimate line positions, so complex layouts may differ. A little cleanup after extracting may be needed.
The character count comes back as 0.
It's most likely a scan (image PDF) with no text layer. An on-screen notice points this out too.
Does it extract content inside tables?
Text inside tables is extracted, but the row/column structure isn't preserved — it comes out as plain text. If you need the table format, use 'PDF to Word'.
How do I get the extracted text out?
Use 'Copy all' to put it straight on your clipboard, or 'Download TXT' to save it as a text file.
Does it work on PDFs with many pages?
Yes. When extraction finishes, the total page count and character count are shown. Large documents may take a little longer to extract.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Everything is processed 100% in your browser and your document is never sent anywhere.