PDF to Text

Convert a PDF to text

Extract the text from any PDF — whether it already has a text layer or is a scanned image. Works entirely in your browser. No upload.

Open PDF to Text tool →

How to convert a PDF to text

1.
Open the tool
Go to the OCR tool. No sign-up required.
2.
Drop your PDF
Drag the file onto the dropzone or click to browse. Multiple files are supported.
3.
Run OCR if it's scanned
The tool detects whether your PDF is scanned or already searchable. For scanned PDFs, click Run OCR — expect 3–4 seconds per page.
4.
Choose Plain Text and download
Select Plain Text as your output format, then click Download to get a .txt file.

Scanned vs searchable PDFs

Not all PDFs are the same. A PDF created by printing a document to PDF (from Word, for example) already has a text layer — you can select and copy text normally. A scanned PDF is different: it's a series of photographs of pages. There's no text, only pixels.

The tool handles both. Searchable PDFs get their text extracted directly (instant, perfect accuracy). Scanned PDFs go through OCR — slower, but the result is usable text with a confidence score on each page so you know how reliable it is.

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Frequently asked questions

Can I convert a scanned PDF to text?: Yes. Scanned PDFs are images — they have no text layer. The OCR tool reads each page as an image and reconstructs the text using character recognition. Expect 90–95% accuracy on clean scans.
What if the PDF already has selectable text?: The tool detects this automatically. If your PDF already has a text layer, the text is extracted directly without running OCR — much faster and perfectly accurate.
Is the conversion free?: Yes, completely free. The tool runs in your browser using open-source software. Nothing is uploaded, so there's nothing to charge for.
What about multi-page PDFs?: Each page is processed in sequence. The output text includes all pages with page separators so you can tell where one page ends and the next begins.
What text encoding does the output use?: UTF-8, which supports all English characters and most punctuation. Download as .txt and open in any text editor.