Extract Text from a PDF
Pull the text out of a PDF, page by page, without uploading it.
Fill in the form and press “Extract text” to see the result here.
How to use it
- 1Select your PDF, or drag and drop it onto the upload area.
- 2Adjust the options if you need something other than the defaults.
- 3Press the button. The document is processed on your device - nothing is uploaded.
- 4Download the result. Your original file is untouched.
About the Extract Text from a PDF
Text is read with pdf.js, which reports each text item with its position on the page. Line breaks are inferred from vertical position, which reconstructs the reading order for ordinary documents.
Multi-column layouts can come out interleaved, because the items are stored in drawing order rather than reading order. There is no reliable way around that without layout analysis.
Pages with no extractable text are counted and reported. That almost always means a scanned page - an image of text, with no text layer - which would need optical character recognition to read.
Questions people ask
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The document is read and rewritten by JavaScript in your own browser. Nothing is transmitted, which is the only sensible arrangement for contracts, invoices, medical records and anything else people put in a PDF.
Why is the result empty for my scanned document?
A scan is a picture of a page, with no text stored in the file. Extracting text from it requires OCR, which is a different technology and is not offered here.
Is your document uploaded to a server?
No. This tool runs entirely in your browser using standard web APIs, so your document never leaves your device. You can confirm it by opening your browser's network panel while the tool runs, or by disconnecting from the internet after the page has loaded.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
Yes, it is free, and there is no account, no sign-up and no watermark on the result. The project is funded by optional donations.