Pull all text content out of any PDF — view page by page, copy, or download as .txt
Text extraction works on PDFs with embedded text. Scanned PDFs (image-only) require OCR and may not produce text. All processing happens in your browser — your file never leaves your device.
A PDF does not store paragraphs as strings. Each page carries a content stream of drawing operators such as Tj (show a string) and TJ (show a kerning array), and the characters inside them are glyph character codes, not Unicode text. Extraction parses that stream, resolves each code through the font's glyph-to-Unicode mapping (a ToUnicode CMap), and reassembles the strings in reading order — page by page. This is why scanned, image-only PDFs yield no text: there are no operators to parse, only pixels.
The text layer is rebuilt from drawing instructions. A font without a ToUnicode CMap falls back to the PDF's built-in encoding, which is why extracted text can look garbled in unusual fonts.
An invoice exported from accounting software contains real, selectable text. Here is what the extractor walks through on each page.
Pull all text from a PDF, per page, copy or download instantly. 100% in-browser.
PDF Text Extractor is a free browser tool that reads the embedded text layer of any PDF and presents it as selectable, copyable plain text. It parses the PDF structure locally using pdf.js — no server round-trip required. The tool displays text page by page with page numbers, so you can grab a single paragraph or the entire document. A one-click "Copy All" button places the full text on your clipboard, and "Download .txt" exports a clean plain-text file. Formatting artifacts like headers, footers, and page numbers are preserved so you can clean them in your editor of choice.
Researchers use this tool to pull quotes and data from journal articles without retyping. Legal assistants extract clause text from contracts for comparison in a diff tool. Students copy lecture slides into note-taking apps. Developers grab error messages or configuration snippets from technical PDFs. Journalists extract statements from public records released as PDFs. It is also the fastest way to feed PDF content into AI tools, translation services, or text-analysis pipelines — copy the text, paste it into your workflow, and you are done. No OCR subscription, no per-page charges.
Upload a PDF by clicking "Choose File" or dragging it onto the drop zone. The tool renders each page and extracts the text layer instantly. Navigate between pages using the page selector. Click "Copy Page" to grab a single page or "Copy All" for the entire document. Alternatively, click "Download .txt" to save the full text as a plain-text file. For scanned PDFs (image-only, no text layer), the tool will report zero extractable characters — in that case, use an OCR tool first to create a searchable PDF, then return here to extract the text.
This tool extracts embedded text layers from digitally created PDFs page by page. For scanned documents without a text layer, you would first need OCR. Extracted text can be copied to your clipboard or downloaded as a plain .txt file for use in other applications.
A 200-page PDF typically extracts in under 2 seconds because parsing happens locally in your browser with no network round-trip. Output is organized page-by-page with page numbers, so you can locate specific passages quickly without re-opening the original document.
What do you call a crab that plays baseball?
No paywalls, no signups, no data sold. Built by a solo developer who believes useful tools should be accessible to everyone.
☕Support me on Ko-fi— keep tools free100% of proceeds go towards hosting & building more free tools.