Free · runs in your browser · nothing is uploaded · works offline
PDF to Text Online — Extract Text with Paragraphs, No Upload
Clean plain text from any PDF with a text layer, paragraphs intact.
Clean plain text from any PDF with a text layer, paragraphs intact.
Private by design: processing happens on your device with open-source libraries served from this site (licences). Nothing is uploaded, and once loaded the tool keeps working offline. Need other tools? All tools are on the homepage.
Free, no ads, no upsell. If it saved you a trip to a paid converter, you can buy the developer a coffee — it funds new tools and keeps this one free. ☕ Buy me a coffee
Runs on your deviceTested on Pixel 7 & MacBook Air M2Open-source engines · licences
About this tool
The tool reads the PDF's text layer with pdf.js, groups lines into paragraphs by spacing and font size, mends hyphenated line breaks and writes a UTF-8 .txt file. Pages are separated by blank lines. It is the quickest way to get quotable text out of a report or paste a contract into another app.
If the result is empty, the PDF is a scan — run the OCR tool, which produces text as well.
How it works
- Step 1. Choose or drop the PDF(s).
- Step 2. Press Extract text.
- Step 3. Download <name>.txt.
Questions
Why is the text file empty?
The PDF has no text layer (it is a scanned image). Use OCR PDF, choosing "Plain text" as the output.
Does it keep tables?
Table rows come out as lines with spaces between cells; for Markdown tables use PDF to Markdown.
Is the order of columns preserved?
Lines are read top-to-bottom, left-to-right; two-column layouts may interleave. Try PDF to Markdown, which detects headings and lists better.
Good to know
- No OCR (see OCR PDF).
- Multi-column layouts may interleave.