PDF to Text — Pull the Written Content Out of a PDF
Extract the text from a PDF into a plain .txt file that you can paste into any editor, feed into a script, or search with grep. Only real text (not scanned images) is exported.
What it can and can't read
PDFs made from Word, Google Docs, LaTeX or web pages have a real text layer — every character extracts cleanly. Scanned documents are just images to a PDF viewer; the extractor will return nothing useful. For those, use OCR to PDF first.
Layout is not preserved
The output is flat text: paragraphs, headings, and body copy in reading order. Columns, tables and formatting are lost — this is deliberate, so the text is easy to process programmatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my TXT file empty?
Almost always because the PDF is a scan. Run it through OCR to PDF first, then extract text from the OCR output.
Can I get the text in the original order?
The tool preserves reading order on most PDFs, but complex layouts (multi-column academic papers) sometimes come out interleaved.
Does it extract text from form fields?
It extracts text from the visible page content. Form field values are stored separately and may not appear.