Extract Text from a PDF

Copying text out of a PDF by hand is slow and error prone, especially across dozens of pages. Whether you are quoting a report, reusing an old document or feeding content into another tool, pulling the text out in one step saves a great deal of retyping. This tool reads your PDF and returns the text it contains, ready to paste anywhere.

What you can do with it

How to use this tool

  1. Upload the PDF you want to read.
  2. Run the text extraction.
  3. Review the text that comes back.
  4. Copy or download it for use elsewhere.

Frequently asked questions

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Scanned pages are pictures rather than text, so extraction works best on documents created digitally.

Will the formatting be preserved?

The text is returned as plain content. Complex layouts and columns may read in a different order than they appear.

Can I extract from a protected PDF?

Remove the password first using the unlock tool, then extract the text.

Is there a page limit?

Ordinary documents are handled quickly. Long files take a little more time.