PDF to Text
Extract plain text from a digital PDF.
Click to upload or drag & drop
Select a PDF file
How to use the PDF to Text
- 1Upload your PDF file
Drag and drop or click to select the PDF file.
- 2Extract Text
Click Extract Text and we process it on our secure server.
- 3Download
Your text file downloads automatically.
Extract text from a PDF
This tool pulls the text out of a digital PDF into a plain .txt file using Ghostscript. It works on PDFs that already contain real text. For scanned or image-only PDFs, use the OCR PDF tool instead, which recognises the text from the page images.
When to use it
- Copy the text out of a report or ebook PDF.
- Get a plain-text version for editing or search.
- Feed PDF content into another tool or script.
Private & secure
The text is extracted from your PDF on our server and returned as plain text. Your file is sent over an encrypted link into a one-time workspace and deleted the moment the text is returned — nothing is stored or read.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
No — scanned PDFs are just images of text. Use the OCR PDF tool for those; it recognises the characters. This tool extracts text that is already digital.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
Yes. Pulling clean text out of a PDF is handled server-side, so the file is uploaded for the extraction. It is processed in an isolated workspace and erased as soon as the text comes back.
Is it free? Is there a watermark or size limit?
Completely free, no account, and no limits. PDFs up to 100 MB each can be converted to text.