Quoting and research
Pull exact sentences out of a PDF report, paper, or ebook so you can quote them without retyping by hand.
PDF to Text Converter
Turn any PDF into clean, plain text you can copy, search, and reuse, including scanned documents thanks to built-in OCR.
Convert PDF to textNo credit card required
What this PDF to text converter does
This tool reads the words inside a PDF and hands them back to you as plain text in a clean .txt file. There is no formatting to wrestle with, no columns to untangle, and nothing to install. You upload the PDF, the converter reads every page, and you get the raw text ready to paste wherever you need it. The file is saved in UTF-8, which simply means accented and special characters like é, ñ, ü, and ç stay intact instead of turning into broken symbols.
If your PDF came from a scanner or a photo of a page, the text inside it is actually an image, so a normal copy and paste gives you nothing. This converter handles that too: it runs OCR (Optical Character Recognition, the technology that recognizes letters inside a picture) so the words from a scan become real, selectable text. You end up with a single .txt file that opens in any text editor on any device, which makes it ideal for searching, quoting, translating, or feeding into another tool.
How to convert a PDF to text
- 1
Upload your PDF
Drag your PDF onto the page or pick it from your device. It works the same on Windows, Mac, and phones, with nothing to install.
- 2
We read the text
The converter pulls the words from every page. If the PDF is a scan, OCR steps in automatically to recognize the text inside the images.
- 3
Download your .txt
Grab the clean plain text file in UTF-8. Copy it, search it, or drop it into any other app right away.
What goes in and what comes out
- Input: a PDF file, whether it was exported from software or created by scanning paper.
- Output: a plain text .txt file with the readable words from your document.
- Encoding: UTF-8, so accented and non-English characters are preserved correctly.
- Scanned PDFs: handled automatically with OCR, turning image-based pages into real text.
- Size limit: up to 10MB per file, which covers most everyday documents and reports.
What the plain text output looks like
Your PDF
quarterly-report.pdf (12 pages, includes a scanned cover page)quarterly-report.txt
Quarterly Report Prepared by the Operations Team Summary Revenue grew steadily across all regions this period. Customer retention reached its highest level to date. Next Steps 1. Expand onboarding support 2. Review supplier contracts
When this comes in handy
Searching a scan
Run OCR on a scanned contract or receipt so you can finally search inside it for a name, date, or number.
Reusing content
Move text from a PDF into your notes, a document, an email, or another tool without the original formatting tagging along.
Accessibility
Get clean, plain text that screen readers and assistive tools can read aloud far more reliably than a locked-down PDF.
Tips for the best results
- For scanned PDFs, a clean, straight, well-lit scan helps OCR read the letters more accurately than a blurry or tilted one.
- If you only need part of a long PDF, plain text makes it quick to find and copy just the section you want.
- Keep files under 10MB; if a PDF is larger, splitting it into smaller files usually gets you under the limit.
- Once you have the .txt, use your editor's find function to jump straight to a name, date, or keyword inside the document.
- Plain text drops all formatting on purpose, so reach for this tool when the content matters more than how the page looked.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to pull the text out of your PDF?
Free, no watermark, no daily limit, and your files are never stored. Even scanned PDFs work thanks to OCR.
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