Extracted text will appear here
PDF to Text Converter: Extract Content Instantly
Need to copy the words without the formatting? Our PDF to Text Converter strips away images, fonts, and layouts, leaving you with clean, raw text. This is the perfect tool for data mining, feeding content into NLP models, or simply copying a large document into Notepad.
How to Extract Text from PDF
Get the raw content from your file in three easy steps using our PDF to Text tool:
1. Upload File
Drag & drop your PDF. We accept large reports, ebooks, and research papers.
2. Strip Formatting
Our engine removes images and styling, isolating the text layer.
3. Download TXT
Get a .txt file ready for editing, coding, or analysis.
Why Use a Text Extractor?
Sometimes, less is more. Converting PDF to Text removes the distractions.
Data Mining
Analysts use this tool to scrape thousands of PDF invoices or reports. Once in .txt format, the data can be easily imported into Excel or Python scripts.
Easy Copy-Paste
Have you ever tried to copy text from a PDF, and it pastes with weird line breaks? Converting to text fixes this, giving you a continuous stream of words.
Tiny File Size
A 50MB PDF full of images might become a 50KB text file. This is perfect for archiving content without using up your storage space.
Secure Extraction
We process your documents locally in your browser when possible, or via secure SSL encryption. Your files are deleted after 1 hour.
TXT vs. Word vs. PDF
| Feature | Plain Text (.txt) | Word Doc (.docx) |
|---|---|---|
| Formatting | ❌ None | ✅ Preserved |
| File Size | ✅ Smallest | ⚠️ Medium |
| Best For… | Coding, Raw Data | Editing, Office Work |
* Need to keep the formatting? Use our PDF to Word Converter instead.
How Text Extraction Works
PDFs are actually “drawing” instructions. They tell the printer where to put ink. They don’t naturally store sentences like a Word doc.
Our PDF to Text engine reads these drawing instructions, identifies the letters, and reconstructs the words. It ignores images, vector graphics, and page numbers to give you a continuous stream of text. If you are a developer looking for structured data (like tables), you might prefer our PDF to JSON Parser.
Frequently Asked Questions
If your PDF is a scan (an image of text), standard extraction won’t work because there is no text layer. You would need an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool. This tool works best on “selectable” text.
Yes, that is the point! A .txt file does not support bold, italics, or columns. This tool is designed to give you just the words, stripping away all visual design.
If the PDF has a user password preventing it from opening, you must unlock it first. Use our PDF Password Remover and then come back to extract the text.
Yes, SmartToolzy provides unlimited free conversions. You can process as many documents as you need.