PDF to Text

This tool pulls the plain text out of a PDF and saves it as a .txt file, stripping away layout, images, and formatting. It is useful when you need to paste a contract clause into an email, search a long report for a keyword in a text editor, feed a document into another program that only accepts plain text, or check a scanned invoice's wording without opening a PDF reader. Researchers use it to move quotes from academic papers into notes, students extract passages from assigned readings, and developers pull text out of PDFs to process in scripts or spreadsheets. Because it reads text already embedded in the PDF, results are fast and accurate for documents created from Word, Google Docs, or similar apps, though it cannot read text trapped inside a scanned image.

The tool extracts selectable text embedded in the PDF. It does not perform OCR, so text inside scanned page images, where the page is really a photo rather than typed characters, will not be picked up.

PDFs store text by drawing position on the page, not always in reading order. Complex layouts, multiple columns, and tables may come out jumbled and need cleanup after extraction.

A plain .txt file with each page's text separated by blank lines.

Not directly. Unlock the file first with Remove PDF Password using the password you know, then extract text from the unlocked copy.

Yes. Text extraction runs locally in your browser and your file is not uploaded to Justools.

One PDF up to 25 MB and 200 pages.